[ARC5] Earphone pads...

[Richard Knoppow]

    There are pads that were originally sown into nylon 
flying helmets. There were often cut out of the helmets and 
some of the pads may also have been surplussed out before 
being used.  These will work fine but the phones are 
slightly tilted. The pads are marked "Front" on one side to 
indicate this.  The standard ear-muff pads were designed to 
go on any of about three styles of headband so have 
clearances for the larger forks on some of them. There is 
also a clearance for plug type connectors occasionally 
found.  When mounted for the type of band that has the large 
forks the pad should be mounted with the cut out for the 
leads facing _down_ since its not needed for the lug type 
connectors and gives better clearance for the forks that 
way.
    There were also at least two styles of smaller pads used 
before the earmuff style. I think there were not 
satisfactory in noisy aircraft. One was a rather small pad 
that is found on the R-14 type phone and the other is a 
larger conical pad. I have not seen any of the latter for a 
very long time.  The earmuff type was originally made using 
a rubber body and chamois covers filled with kapok. There 
were later versions made at least up to the Korean war that 
had two piece plastic bodies and plastic covering material. 
All will fit the ANBH-1 and 1A phones.
     It would be interesting to know something of the 
history of the development of these headphones. The first 
ones were conventional bipolar magnetic phones with rather 
poor voice reproduction. These were replaced with the ANBH 
type which I think are either moving coil and then by the 
ANBH-1A which is a moving coil phone of very good quality. 
These were built commercially after WW-2 by Permoflux and 
widely used in broadcasting for monitoring.

--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL
dickburk at ix.netcom.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "DSP3" <jeepp at comcast.net>
To: <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2015 6:50 AM
Subject: Re: [ARC5] Earphone pads...


> Gentlemen,
> Those pads look very nice, indeed.  Let me just say, 
> though, that if you're looking for pads for the 
> R-14-series elements, these "NAF" type pads will work. 
> _Depending on the condition of the rubber,_ you may have 
> to gently heat them up a bit and use some silicone spray. 
> If you're going to try and force some ANB-series elements 
> in them... be prepared for a real fight!!   The ANB 
> elements were generally used with the softer rubber-cap 
> type pads.  The other, smaller hard rubber pads were also 
> meant for the R-14 elements but, again, can be made to 
> work with ANB's.These pads, unlike a lot of them on the 
> market, do have the original designed molded insertion and 
> cord relief indentations.  Without these indentations, one 
> has to cut them out, lest the connections be chaffed and 
> additional severe difficulty in initial insertion of the 
> element.    Been there and done that too many times!!!
>
> Jeep - K3HVG
>
> On 1/2/2015 7:24 AM, Mike Hanz wrote:
>> Try 
>> http://www.ebay.com/itm/WWII-Headset-Cushions-Sold-by-the-Pair-/311146347344
>>
>> On 1/1/2015 11:55 PM, Kenneth G. Gordon wrote:
>>> I have a backup pair of original AAF headphones, the 
>>> ones with the shorty
>>> bail-out plug on them. The headband is marked HB-7.
>>>
>>> Might anyone know where I could get a set of the pads 
>>> that fit over the
>>> headphones? They are hurting my ears.
>>>
>>> Ken W7EKB
>>
>
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