Hmmwv Intercom VIC-1 vs VIC-3

[ATNC325]

Been doing a lot of research on an intercom system for my m988 with a family of 4. Goes without saying, communication is pointless when driving down the road. Have been looking at General Aviation intercoms and motorcycle intercoms but recently liked the idea of staying somewhat military correct and ran across the vic systems. In an ideal world I would like to have the ability to communicate with the 3 other passengers and/or have 2 passengers (kids) be on a separate channel from wife and I if possible. If I could have my cake and eat it too....to have the ability to link phone to the system for calls, navigation and music would be awesome. Saw the gentleman on the board that at one time was making an aux. box to help facilitate this.

My main question is with the above needs and some wants ....should I be looking at the VIC-3 or can some of this be had with the VIC-1? Been checking out ebay and eastern surplus but is there a preferred vendor guys like going to for military surplus radios? Any idea of what's the going rate for a "decent" VIC-1 vs VIC-3 intercom system for a 4 man crew? Been seeing prices and conditions of components for both systems all over the place and just looking for a rough idea of others have into their intercom systems? I don't mind piecing it together as the budget allows and understand the gamble you get with some ebay components. Thanks in advance guys!

 

[US6x4]

Because of the varying conditions and unknown functionality of used components i sourced my 4-person VIC-1 system from recodefense who is a vendor on this site. They're a DOD refurbisher of VIC-1s and can supply the amplifier, the crew boxes, and even radios but you would be on your own for headsets and cables. It looks like they're not in production at the moment - I hope they return as they were a great company to deal with.
https://recodefense.com/

 

[Wire Fox]

Most of what you want to do can be done on the VIC-1 for much less money than on the VIC-3. It's an older, simpler system optimized for inter-connection with the VRC-12 radio series. You'll have a multi-station intercom system with the option to have any user listen/talk on a connected radio. While that's not on your list of needs, a user on here (Augi) designed a small electronic device that takes the place of a radio and is used to connect a cell phone or similar audio source into a VIC-1 or VIC-3 system.

VIC-3 is more modern and has more configuration options, but is significantly more expensive for a complete system, and doesn't look like it offers you any fundamental advantages. Neither the VIC-1 or VIC-3 offers multiple intercom communication streams, meaning that there's only one talk group for the whole vehicle. Both systems grant each individual the ability to choose if they're going to listen to just the intercom, one of the radios, or all sources combined. As well, the individual user can choose if their microphone will talk to the intercom, or one of the radios. On the VIC-1, it's a max of 3 radios. On the VIC-3, it's a max of 6 radios.

Only "out of the box, military" solution I can think of to do exactly what you want is to get two complete, two-station intercom systems. At least on the VIC-3, you can actually line-wire the main control boxes together and bridge their intercoms. With it that way, you can have each two-station system talking on its own, and with a rotation of the mode switch, you then bridge the intercoms together and have the whole vehicle talking. That's a really expensive, unwieldy solution that's probably still not going to work exactly as expected. I think I'd go for a commercial solution prior to trying to go for this idea, unless I was just swimming in spare parts and wanted to prove I could do it to play around.

 

[ATNC325]

Most of what you want to do can be done on the VIC-1 for much less money than on the VIC-3. It's an older, simpler system optimized for inter-connection with the VRC-12 radio series. You'll have a multi-station intercom system with the option to have any user listen/talk on a connected radio. While that's not on your list of needs, a user on here (Augi) designed a small electronic device that takes the place of a radio and is used to connect a cell phone or similar audio source into a VIC-1 or VIC-3 system.

VIC-3 is more modern and has more configuration options, but is significantly more expensive for a complete system, and doesn't look like it offers you any fundamental advantages. Neither the VIC-1 or VIC-3 offers multiple intercom communication streams, meaning that there's only one talk group for the whole vehicle. Both systems grant each individual the ability to choose if they're going to listen to just the intercom, one of the radios, or all sources combined. As well, the individual user can choose if their microphone will talk to the intercom, or one of the radios. On the VIC-1, it's a max of 3 radios. On the VIC-3, it's a max of 6 radios.

Only "out of the box, military" solution I can think of to do exactly what you want is to get two complete, two-station intercom systems. At least on the VIC-3, you can actually line-wire the main control boxes together and bridge their intercoms. With it that way, you can have each two-station system talking on its own, and with a rotation of the mode switch, you then bridge the intercoms together and have the whole vehicle talking. That's a really expensive, unwieldy solution that's probably still not going to work exactly as expected. I think I'd go for a commercial solution prior to trying to go for this idea, unless I was just swimming in spare parts and wanted to prove I could do it to play around.

Thank you for this very detailed and informative answer to my question . I was hoping to have my cake and eat it to, so it's nice to know what I'm getting into verses just figuring it out as I go. I think I'm going to invest in a cheaper commercial unit for current needs and see how it works and then acquire the VIC-1 parts as I run across good deals and build that system soley for the love and enjoyment of MV equipment knowing while it'll have some of the features I'm trying to check off. Thank again for your help!!