The time had come to wire the intercom music input jack, a chore which I wasn't looking forward to accomplishing. The jack itself is very small and takes only a 1/4" hole through the panel to insert it. The connections are tiny and can only take about a 22AWG wire max. The gps 496 audio outputs are through a 1/8" mini stereo plug that must be soldered to the small shielded 24AWG wires. My soldering iron tip is almost as big as the plug. Somehow I managed to solder the mini plug.
The jack had to be soldered before mounting into the panel, so I worked off the canopy rail just above the mount location. The intercom wires were 22AWG so I stripped the insulation back far enough to wrap the 24AWG wire around them and then soldered. Luckily I rememebed to position the heatshrink on the wires before I soldered. With the gps wires soldered to the intercom wires, I then soldered the intercom wires to the itty bitty jack. I then heated the heatshrink into place and tried to mount the jack in the itty bitty hole. After dropping the itty bitty knurled nut about 4 or 5 times, I finally caught a thread and tigthened it against the panel face with an itty bitty pair of pliers.
