Helmet Speaker/Mic Kit

I am looking for a good quality helmet speaker/mic kit to use with Motorola two way radios. I have an Aria Quantum helmet & I am planning an LA to Seattle ride with a few friends & we would like to be able to talk to each other while on the road. Push to talk is a must.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Posted a while back by bmwmick....... they seem to have quite a variety of sets to choose from.



Check out these accessories.....
http://www.casporttouring.com/thestore/MotoComm.html

Great folks to deal with and they have the best prices on the Motocomm stuff. I use their PTT's and they work great.

Thank You

Thank you very much this is exactly what I was looking for.

Thanks again.

I purchsed a Motocom a while back and found it to be totaly worthless over 30-35 mph because of wind noise. I have now purchased a throat mic set-up which has yet to be road tested. I would stay away from the Motocom unless they have come up with some noise cancelling improvements. - Bob

That is discouraging to hear. If the Motocom does not work I think we will go back to hand-signals.

For what it's worth. I have the Autocom system and it's hands down outstanding. The mike and head phones are mounted in my Shoei X11 and sound great. For intercom rider with passenger it's super clear at any speed. The passenger needs the same system in thier helmet so it gets pricey. I can also talk hands free on my cell phone at 70mph and the other party can't tell I'm on a bike. For those who want to take issue with a phone on a motorcycle, I don't make calls while riding. The phone is set to automatically answer so I never move a finger while riding.

Motorola Radio

You can plug your Motorola radio into the the Autocom or one of the Chatterbox sets. The get what you pay for and the Chatterbox is less expensive than the Autocom.

What type of Motorola radio do you have FRS/GRS/Commercial?

chatterbox sucks. I had one, and the cables went bad within a month, and customer support is non existant with that company. I learned that you truly get what you pay for. Stay away from chatterbox.

I went through the same thing when shopping for a communication system. Chatterbox was at best just ok. Autocom kept coming up with high marks from people at the shops . . .even ones who didn't carry the line. If you can locate a dealer that carries the line, Autocom typically has a point of sale display where you can listen to the headset and talk with a second person wearing the second headset. Very convincing.
Autocom's philosophy

MotoCom Review (kind of long)

dzimbric, I have Motorola T5620 radios. I bought them earlier this year for our family vacation. They are not the greatest but they work pretty well. I paid $25.00 for a set of two. I have a total of 4. I bought them at Best-Buy. On a camping trip I think we decided that they were good for about 1.5 miles on channels 1-7 & 15-22. These channels as I understand it are 1 watt. The other channels are .5 watts. I am no expert so I may be way off base; please forgive me if I am.

First Impressions:
I received my MotoCom system on Tuesday & installed it in my Helmet (Aria Quantum). My first impression is that the quality of the wires & plugs are top notch. They use an interlocking (Male-Female 6 pin DIN plugs (like an S-VIDEO plug). Also the microphone wind screen seems large enough to block out some pretty major wind.

Helmet installation took about 30 minutes to get all the wires all tucked in neatly. I did not mount the microphone permanently so I could experiment with the placement. I also did not permanently mount the PPT button & run the wires under the gas tank until I had a chance to fully test the system on the road.

On The Road:
Now this is were things get a little sketchy. MotoCom makes different speakers & microphone kits for almost every radio you can imagine. The main reason for getting a bike to bike set-up is so that myself & two friends can talk to each other when we ride. Friend #1 has Kenwood radios & friend #2 had Midland radios. They both bought a MotoCom system for there respective radios. I was not sure all three radios would work with one another but they did.

We started out in Redmond yesterday (Thursday) afternoon about 3:00 PM. We were planning on riding 20-30 miles to get the bugs worked out of the radio set-up. We immediately discovered that we all had placed the microphone too close to the center on the chin guard. This was allowing to much air to pass over the wind screen above 40 miles per hour. I had the chin vent open on my helmet & this exacerbated the problem. We stopped for a few minutes & I moved my microphone further off to the side of my mouth just at the corner of my mouth. This helped quite a bit. We were on I-405 chugging along at about 75 MPH and we were able to talk to each other quite well. Above 80 MPH you had to speak a little louder that normal to be heard.

Post Ride:
On the way back to the office my radio kept staying keyed open. I thought as first that my radio was malfunctioning but after a little trouble shooting, I switched PPT buttons with one of my friends & discovered that my PPT button was malfunctioning. I called MotoCom & they said they would send me another PPT button ASAP. When I gave them my address they mentioned that they are located in Redmond (Washington) and suggested that I come over to there offices & pick-up a new cable/PPT button. So today I will go over to MotoCom to swap out the offending cable/button & be on my way.

All in all I am very pleases with the system. Having a cable or button break does not even bother me all that much. MotoCom is making it right & that is all I can ask. My two friends did not have any trouble with there systems, go figure

The bottom line is that I have a pretty neat bike to bike communications system that I paid about $75.00 for, $50.00 for the MotoCom & $25.00 for the radios.

That's totally cool. Where did you mount the radios?

I've been thinking about bike to bike, but the cost of two Autocoms has kept me out.

Dave, I have the radio attached to the lower part of my GS gas tank with a 2ÔÇØ square piece of Velcro. The wire ÔÇ£hubÔÇØ for lack of a better word is under the seat. The wire going to the PPT button will run under the gas tank & follow the clutch cable to the left grip. I will then leave the coiled wire that goes to the helmet poking out from the front of the seat & when it is not in use I will coil it under the seat.

In bad or rainy weather I think I will put the radio in one of the inner pockets of my Kilimanjaro.

Update:
I just got back from the home offices of RF Limited who is the parent company of MotoCom. Cole the man in charge traded my PPT Button/Cable in about 10 seconds. He also mentioned to me that they are coming out with a new line of intercom products & may have a booth at the Spokane Rally.

I will try to take a few pictures this weekend once I finish the installation.

FRS Radio

That radio is a FRS, which designates the frequency that the radio operates on. It is compatable with any other radio that works on the frequency, regardless of brand.

Sounds like you did very well in the financial department. 75.00 isn't bad at all, ,my Chatterbox, whick also works on the same frequncies cost me a bit more but I now have the pleasure of being able to converse with my SO while riding, listen to the radar detector and tunes from my MP3.

Thanks for the input on microphone placement, I will try to move my wife's mic, it sounds like she is at the bottom of a very tall tin can and when she talks I can't get the VOX to shut off. Hmmmm?

I mounted mine on the side of my tankbag and put the MP3 in the map case on top. The charger plugs into my accessory outlet I installed on the dash.

KBasa said:

That's totally cool. Where did you mount the radios?

I've been thinking about bike to bike, but the cost of two Autocoms has kept me out.

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kbasa,

I put the autocom and ipod on top of a plastic cheese board using velcro. The radio is below. The whole setup can be moved to the other bike in a couple of minutes. If I keep a small bottle of wine in the bag too, I can stop for wine and cheese

I am currently using rechargeable batteries though at some point, I will electrify the tank bag.

Everyone I've talked to that has owned some other system eventually goes to Autocom. Either because the original didn't work as advertised or because of a missing function (like adding music or cell phone (yuk!) or integrating the radar detector or to use the intercom for talking with passenger). Autocom is superior to many others with respect to integrating different sources.

Autocom is supposed to be coming out with a less expensive unit that has fewer features (maybe just bike-to-bike?).

If all you need is bike-to-bike, then by all means, look at alternatives to Autocom.

Ian

ian408 said:

Autocom is supposed to be coming out with a less expensive unit that has fewer features (maybe just bike-to-bike?).

Click to expand...

Autocom has a bike-to-bike only kit ($190) but I haven't used it so I don't know how well it works.

Their newest model is the Active 7 Smart which is about $100 less than their other "complete" system. The kit, which includes the unit, cords and one headset, is $280 versus $380 for the Pro 7 Sport (who comes up with these names?) kit. They are similar except the Smart is smaller, can't run on batteries and can't power the Kenwood GMRS radio directly. Oh, the Smart also has a volume knob instead of high/low "input."

Michael

M. Cohen said:

Autocom has a bike-to-bike only kit ($190) but I haven't used it so I don't know how well it works.

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Just wanted to add that the above doesn't include the radio, that'll need to be purchased separately.