Add an Earpiece to Your Walkie Talkies

This is one of a very few projects that I finished and actually worked better than expected. I did this about 3 years ago as a recreational woodsball player I wanted something I could communicate with the only other person I played with at the time. When a “big game” game was announced I knew yelling orders or spotting opposing players was going to give our positions away and have us warming up the spawn area. So here is my tutorial on making some ordinary uniden walkie talkies (wt from now on) into pretty cheap and easy tactical coms.

 

Materials needed:

Walkie talkies

3.5mm Ysplitter (one in the picture is for 2.5mm jacks)

Some jb weld

Phillips head screw driver  or whatever applies to your wt

Soldering iron

Flux

Solder

Scissors

First open up your wt case careful not to gouge the board or tear any wires. Find the two wires leading to the board from the speaker.Cut or desolder them from the board make sure you know where the wires are supposed to go. Set that aside for a bit and take out your Y splitter and cut closest to the connector as possible and separate the two jacks. Now with the soldering iron mark a groove next to where the two solder points for the speaker are now close the case with or without the pcb board if you can and carefully continue making the whole where the cord will come out of.

Assemble the two halves and measure one of the jacks it should be pinched or in between the halves. If everything fits and you have decided where the best position for the jack to be set its time to splice,trim the black and red wires from your headphone jack and get everything ready for soldering. Remember kids measure twice and cut once. If everything went well and you are certain the case is going to close you are going to solder wires to the appropriate solder point. After that is done go ahead and assemble the two halves and test everything out. If  it all works then replace all the screws for the case. Mix your jb weld and clean everything thing with some alcohol. Once the jb weld is ready glue the jack to the side and let dry then sand excess. there you have it just repeat and you have yourself a pair of  modded walkie talkies perfect for planning strategies on the paintball field or just playing pranks on people. If you really want to go all out solder the remaining wires from your jack to the mic solder points so you can use a mic and earpiece combo headset. then run wires from the ptt button to a small pressure switch you can use on your finger and never miss the action again.