Lets talk about bike comms

ok sooooo i know we had a recent chat about bike comms,
but i want a decent set of radios for the bike ...round about 4 radios that i can use...... IE nice range ...half decent...can use off the bike if need be.

looked on ebay and saw nothing great ..or if they was they were like £300 per radio.

so answers on a post card please

[tigersaw]

Well I threw something together for a rideout that never happened, but it all worked in theory.
Argos walkie talkies at £15 a pair with vox. 3AAA batts, good enough range at about 1/2 mile tested.
The sat nav plugged into one, with vox set, so the others could hear instructions. Modified Nokia phone earpiece/ bud mic leads for the riders. I found vox was useless in a helmet, but the walkie talkie could be worn on the outside of the jacket and easily pressed with the left hand. I did experiment with exchanging the PTT switch for a alarm type magnet switch, then it could be keyed by just moving glove close to the walkie talkie, one of those tiny magnets taped to a finger.
It all worked in the garage, and messing about, but we never tried it out in anger. It all now sits in a box in the loft.

I have tons of 'professional' stuff too, Icom and Motorola mainly at work, but dismissed it immediately. Heavy, need special chargers etc. Even the 5 watt UHF stuff only manages about a mile set to set anyway.

does sound an effort though

[BillyC]

Originally Posted by stewboy

Lets talk about bike comms

Sure no problem, but I feel it's better suited to the Tuning and Tweaking session, despite not being generically SV.

MOVED

Your problem is that the PMR446 licenced radios are limited to 0.5w, which won't take you very far (well I have spoken to a guy in Germany from a UHF handheld, but that's a long story)...

You need to find some radios that are on the same frequency band, but are 4 or 5 watts each. However:

These units are not licenced
They are more expensive
They eat batteries (due to the higer power) but you can power direct from the bike

Both Icom and Kenwood make full power versions of their PMR446 units and they are often on Ebay, albeit at a price...

Hope that helps.

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[BillyC]

Aren't PMR radios digital though? If so, surely that's a redeeming feature in terms of clarity and range - though admitedly not much!

ebay is your friend.

Although technically illegal, its very unlikely you'll get caught with the 4W versions that run on the PMR channels.

Originally Posted by BillyC

Aren't PMR radios digital though? If so, surely that's a redeeming feature in terms of clarity and range - though admitedly not much!

No, digital "functions" maybe, but the voice is annalogue. And whilst technically "illegal", somebody would have to know their stuff to work out that it's a high power version.

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[tigersaw]

I think you are getting sidetracked by range and power. I have access to high power kit - ( and even authority to use it ) - tried it but I dismissed it as impractical due to weight and battery life. A doubling of power does not get you a doubling of range, it doesn't work like that. True you could use the bikes DC power, but thats impractical. You can get 1/2 mile range out of cheapo license free argos kit, just how far apart are you going to get?
The real hurdles are ease of use and audio quality. If you really don't want to put any effort or experiment into it, then I'd suggest autocomm kit, which solves the tricky bits, then patch in some walkie talkies of your own.

Originally Posted by tigersaw

I think you are getting sidetracked by range and power. I have access to high power kit - ( and even authority to use it ) - tried it but I dismissed it as impractical due to weight and battery life. A doubling of power does not get you a doubling of range, it doesn't work like that. True you could use the bikes DC power, but thats impractical. You can get 1/2 mile range out of cheapo license free argos kit, just how far apart are you going to get?
The real hurdles are ease of use and audio quality. If you really don't want to put any effort or experiment into it, then I'd suggest autocomm kit, which solves the tricky bits, then patch in some walkie talkies of your own.

I too have the authority to use it (licenced radio amateur...) but we are talking 0.5 to 5 watts, 10dB (or 10 x power), rather than "double the power" which is 3 dB.

The most effecient way to increase range is to modify the antenna, but that's not really practical, especially when they will often be used while touring, thus having luggage on the bike...

And I have assumed that any radio would be to be fitted to an Autocom, is there any other way (to do it properly ?)

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