Radio communication? Which one works best?

warriorblue said:
I enjoy listening to music while i ride...listening to Led Zepplin while cruiseing down a straight, hard packed trail is awesome...as far as wire attachment is concerned, i only have one from my helmet to the chatterbox, my mp3 player stays in my handle bar pouch...cost of the unit was 225.00, i searched the internet till i got the right price...i dont hunt and my cell works fine on the water...if i am that far off shore fishing, the vhf radio in the boat is my communication to land...
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Although, one could spend $35 for a GMRS radio and $35 for a fancy head set or throat mike. $70 versus $225 represents a lot of extra money just for the additional feature of being able to plug in your iPod, IMHO. OTOH, some people really like Led Zeppelin...

But...I'm glad you are pleased with your solution. My posts in this thread have been primarily to try to offer the commo solution that worked for me after years of struggling with other methods, including yours, in response to Brunter Burner's original post , not to try to convince anyone that they should all switch to way I do it.
 
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BigMac - I like your setup witht the throat mike. If I used a setup like that would the radio be compatible with my buddies who have the traditional helmet mounted snowmobile communicators like chatter box, 900 mgz, etc....?


BigMac said:
Yep, I know. I used to use Chatterboxes, Nadys, Colletts...49mhz, 900mhz, full duplex FM -- tried 'em all over the last many years. If I were at all interested in listening to music while snowmobiling, I'd probably have to rethink it, but since my goal is just communication, I want it to be good, reliable and easy-to-use communication. I don't want to put anything in my helmet, I don't want wires attaching me to the tank bag or any other part of the sled, I don't want some box velcro'd or clipped to my helmet, I want reliable VOX without a lot of fiddling, I want no background noise, I want good range, and I don't want to pay $329 per unit. Plus, I want to be able to carry it in my pocket and use it as a walkie-talkie out on the lake in the summer, in the woods hunting in the fall, or as an easy-to-use communicator on my motorcycle (typically don't wear a helmet on the Harley).

It's just personal preference. I've tried a LOT of communication solutions. GMRS with throat mike is the best I've done so far for MY particular needs.
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vice108 said:
BigMac - I like your setup witht the throat mike. If I used a setup like that would the radio be compatible with my buddies who have the traditional helmet mounted snowmobile communicators like chatter box, 900 mgz, etc....?
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Not the 900 mhz, but it would be compatible with the Chatterbox FRS and GMRS rigs - just set it to the same channel, squelch code 1, scrambling off.
 
Will it pick up the groomer beacon?


BigMac said:
Not the 900 mhz, but it would be compatible with the Chatterbox FRS and GMRS rigs - just set it to the same channel, squelch code 1, scrambling off.
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vice108 said:
Will it pick up the groomer beacon?
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I don't know about that. Seems to me that the groomer beacons were for both the 49 mhz and 900 mhz frequencies, but I'm inclined to doubt that they transmit on the FRS or GMRS bands....too many channels and squelch codes. I don't know about Chatterbox. Collett communicators currently broadcast the groomer beacon signal only on channel 1 of 900 mhz.
 
maxwell said:
Bigmac,

So you use the throat mic, Does it pick up external sled noise when you are talking?
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No, no external noise at all. That's the big advantage. Throat mikes have been around since at least WWII. Pilots used them routinely because digital noise-cancelling circuitry wasn't invented yet and they needed a microphone wherein the design of the mike itself would eliminate noise.
 
The garmin rino 120 radios with gps feature are real nice. If everyone in your party has one you can see your friends exact location and there bread crumb trail. The are pricey but have vox feature. If a friend disappears or hits a tree while doing some off trail riding you can pinpoint location with your radio. They cost 249.99 each at cabelas or they have a bonus 2 pack for 600 with some extras. Worth checking out. And they will run on 12 volt and I beleive there is a handlebar mount available. Hope this link works
www.garmin.com/products/rino120/
try this also
www.garmin.com/movie/RinoKioskVideoHI.mpg
 
To each his own

BigMac said:
Although, one could spend $35 for a GMRS radio and $35 for a fancy head set or throat mike. $70 versus $225 represents a lot of extra money just for the additional feature of being able to plug in your iPod, IMHO. OTOH, some people really like Led Zeppelin...

But...I'm glad you are pleased with your solution. My posts in this thread have been primarily to try to offer the commo solution that worked for me after years of struggling with other methods, including yours, in response to Brunter Burner's original post , not to try to convince anyone that they should all switch to way I do it.
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I agree, use what you like. But you can have communication with a min of fuss AND MP3 music for about $100. I don't care for the Chatterboxes either and I only paid $125 for my rig which includes a 4 watt radio that I can use anywhere I want to. I've heard good things about the firefoxes and I might try one of those myself.
 
Just got back from a week of riding in the UP. Our riding group decided to try the GMRS radios and Motocomm head sets that Jlance84 uses. I gotta tell ya it was awesome. Although we did some searching and found the needed items for alot less money. The head sets you can get from a couple of places, here are the links.

http://www.handsfreedirect.com/PTT_Systems.html

http://www.csonline.net/crawford/Motocomm/motocomm helmet headsets.htm

Basically $60 for a headset. For the radios we found Cabela's to be the cheapest around. For the same radio that Radiogadgets offers you get 2 radio's from cabela's for $55. We opted to go to the 400 series radio's for $20 bucks more (for 2). They offer 4 watts of power versus 3 watts of power on the 300 series and the 400 series has 10 NOAA channels. We then added the rechargable battery packs (APV-3) for $25,
includes charger, AC & DC plugs and 2 rechargable batteries. For us it worked out to be a total of $110 per guy for the same set up but a little better radio and rechargable batteries. Bottom line is there are choices out there with radio's and head sets. Shop first! Oh forgot to say we railed 1200 miles in 5 days, Sunday - Thursday and had only 50 miles of stuuter bump trails to deal with and the rest were very good to excellent! We were in Ishpeming on Monday and Tuesday when they got 30" of fresh powder. The higher elevations towards Big Bay had well over 6' of snow pack.
 
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