What are some good motorcycle communication systems

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Mon Jan 30, 2006 9:36 am

I'm wanting to get a comm system for my girlfriend and me.

I've seen the autocomms and chatterboxes and a few others. I don't want to buy something that's crap, but I don't want to pay more than I need to.

I mainly want a system that lets you plug in an auxillary like music, but also allows you to communicate bike to bike.

Does anyone have experience with these or recommend a system?

Crovello · #2 Unread post by **Crovello** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 9:52 am

I am looking to buy one for myself. I looked at several of them at the NY bike show. I was looking at the chatterbox. I use to have one and it worked well. "What I did not like is that it mounted on my helmet. They now have some that you can clip to your belt or stuff into your tank bag.
This is an improvement but there are other that mount under your seat. Some of these are expensive. They do have fetures like automatic volume control. The more wind noise it detect the more it raises your volume. Here is a links for you to look at.

http://www.baehrusa.com/

I have a few other links on my other computer. When I get home I will send them along.

Dave

#3 Unread post by **Jamers!** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 10:01 am

i dont know so much about bike comm systems but i know that if you got a good set of motorollas with the mike extension to run up to your mouth that it would work well thats what i would get and just buy an extension like the ones the cops use, but not that big.

http://direct.motorola.com/ENS/web_prod ... nguage=ENS

these are good too, a little pricy but better sounding and quality

http://www.motorola.com/governmentanden ... i/id_1757i

JWF

Crovello · #4 Unread post by **Crovello** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 10:22 am

two more links

http://www.autocomamerica.com/docs/home.cfm

http://www.chatterboxusa.com

2wheel · #5 Unread post by **2wheel** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:01 pm

Get the Communicator by Collett. I've used them for years.

Way better than the chatterbox!

http://www.collett.mb.ca

#6 Unread post by **Lion_Lady** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 1:19 am

I've got an Autocom, Pro-7 Sport, and hubby has the Starcom1 system.

Hubby (guitardad) wrote a response to someone asking about systems on MC-USA.

"OK, as LL said, we've both installed comm systems on our bikes. Mine is a Starcom 1 (http://www.starcom1.com) and hers is an Autocom Pro-7-Sport. Looking at the Autocom site, apparently the Easi-7 advance doesn't support bike-to-bike communications and the Active-7-Smart doesn't have an option for battery power - it has to be wired to the bike. The Pro-7-Sport has the option for battery or hard-wired, but you have to plug in a little wiring harness, so it's not easy to switch between battery and wired-in. Here's our experience with the units....

We're using a pair of Motorola FRS Talkabouts, and they seem to work fine with both comm units. Each system has a Push-To-Talk button, that we've attached to the left handgrip. The Autocom unit has a switch to select PTT, Vox (Voice-activated to talk), or always transmitting. This caused a little problem during our rainy ride to Tennesee - LL's switch got water in it, and defaulted to always transmitting, which meant she couldn't hear me! The switch was replaced under warranty, and we haven't had any other problems with the unit.*

Both units have noise cancellation built in, and both raise the volume as background noise (read "wind noise") increases. The noise cancellation works well on both - neither of us can hear wind noise in the radio, but I wish the amount of volume increase could be turned up a bit more. Both allow you to adjust the Vox setting - the volume at which your voice turns on transmitting. We rarely use that, since I sing when I ride ( ) and so use the PTT. The Starcom1 has a volume adjustment as well, a feature the mid-priced Active-7-Smart has but the higher-priced Pro-7-Sport does not. The Autocom turns down the volume on any music source when either a 2-way radio or the "cell phone" input goes active. The Starcom1 shuts the music off completely. Both of us have Roady2 XM radios installed as well, and both seem to work just fine. The connectors are incompatible - when I rode her bike, I couldn't plug the neadset in my helmet into her system.

Now for price - I paid under $300 for the basic Starcom1 setup from California Sport-Touring (http://www.casporttouring.com/) while the same setup from Autocom was over $500. Now that the Autocom is on sale, it would probably be about the same price. Autocom's accessory cables are more expensive, as are the extra headsets if you want to hook up a passenger. The cables are also beefier, so they may stand up better over time. Autocom has been around longer, and has a good reputation, but I've been satisfied with the Starcom as well."

* We rode in the rain again on Saturday, and my new PTT switch gave up after about 30 minutes. Maybe what I need to do is install handguards on my bike. Once the switch dries out, it works again, but this is a REAL PITA.

Pam

Wockman · #7 Unread post by **Wockman** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 3:28 am

2wheel wrote:Get the Communicator by Collett. I've used them for years.

Way better than the chatterbox!

http://www.collett.mb.ca

I use the Collett too, I love them, they are MUCH better than the Chatterbox. I had a minor problem with a three year old unit, and had to send it in to get the power cord fixed. They gave me NO problems and fixed it for free. If you are looking for a helmet mounted system that actully works look no further than the colletts.

Tue Jan 31, 2006 11:43 am

Ok

Decided that I didn't really want to bite that big a bullet. I'm already using two 6 mile family radio handhelds. I have a headset hooked into each helmet with velcro so we can take it off when we aren't using them. Works great up to about 60 mph then the VOX is always cutting in.

Working on making an external push to talk switch that I'll wire up on the handlebars, I'm also building an amplifier unit to deal with the higher speeds and to allow the use of music and a cellphone while riding. It'll probably look like crumb (haha, I wrote crumb myself- eat that language editor), but it'll save me a few hundred.

Scott58 · #9 Unread post by **Scott58** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 7:35 pm

What type of helmets are you using. I've used VOX in the past and the only thing I really found annoying after awhile was having to say a word or make a noise to get the VOX to kick without losing parts of a sentence. i have a full face helmet and they worked great at 75mph which was the speed we were cruising at most of the time.

Wed Feb 01, 2006 2:08 am

I have a full face helmet. I'm sure I could get a better microphone in the helmet, these weren't made to cancel out wind noise. I'll be working on that as I work on making the system better.

I like the Vox when I'm just tooling around the neighborhood, but push to talk will be that much better.