[TenTec] Paragon 585

[Ken Brown]

Hi Snowy,

     I tried looking at my Paragon II 586 documentation to see if I could
answer your question. Unfortunately my manual does not have the "big
picture" showing how all the various boards and input/output jacks are all
connected together. So I don't know if there is a series resistor between
the speaker output and the phone jack. And of course since mine is a 586 it
may not be identical to the 585 anyway.

     I think whether using stereo headphones would cause any damage depends
on two things;
1) whether the ring of the 1/4" stereo phone plug is left open circuit or
grounded when plugged into the Paragon headphone jack. That depends on the
dimensions of the phone jack.

2) whether the headphones connect the tip and ring directly together when
you switch them to mono mode.

If switching the headphones to mono mode connects the tip and ring together
with no series resistance, rather than leaving the ring open circuit, and
the jack on the radio grounds the ring, then the output of the radio's
audio amplifier would be grounded. On the other hand most headphone jack
circuits I have seen put a few hundred ohms in series with the hot lead of
the phone jack. If that is the case even if the tip connector on the phone
jack is grounded by the headphones, the audio amplifier would still only be
loaded by a few hundred ohms, which should not damage anything. Maybe if
you cranked the volume way up you could smoke that 1/4 watt or 1/2 watt
resistor but I sort of doubt it.

Ken N6KB

On Tue, Mar 9, 2021 at 3:00 AM ROLAND HOWELL via TenTec <
tentec at contesting.com> wrote:

>
> Hi Gents
> Just purchased a set of Kenwood HS5 headphones to use on the paragon, i
> remember in the dim distant past that if you used a stereo jack ( or a
> mono) in the H/P socket then you could do some damage electronically
> speaking to the radio by using the wrong one.
> So question is do i use a mono or stereo wired head set.
> As usual your advice and or recommendations please.
> 73
> Snowy G0HZE
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