Does anybody have any experience/knowledge of using two way radios when riding (on separate bikes)? Do they exist, if yes, which one would you recommend? Or do you use the one-way ones that they use during the DAS?
Autocom are probably the best known make, I had a set and used them on a number of european trips, not bad, seem to work well with in the legal speed limits (athough the wind noise above this tends to cut the “vox” in and out).
Probably the best use was at race meetings ordering beer and food from your mate when he went off
I have Autocom on my bike and the ex has it on his too, when we went to the South of France last year there was a crowd of us all with Autocoms and they were fab. Really clear and very handy on the Paris ring road… I wouldn’t recommend anything else, you get what you pay for…
Autocom is the way to go!
I’m looking at this for my bike as well…
Found the starcom1 site http://www.starcom1.com/therange.htm
and autocom obviously at http://www.autocom.co.uk/
from the looks of it it’s the 2way radio that would effect the compatibility/range between systems as the black boxes appear to be just clever mixing devices.
To the peeps who have this type of system, Are the radio’s wired in to the bikes 12V power supply?
Another question I have is how portable would one of these systems be between bikes. I can see they are self install kits but would they require say extra power cables so it’s only the little box being moved as opposed to the whole wiring?
How much space to these things take up? are they installed in the underseat bit or is the box held by a bracket on to the framesomewhere.
My R1 doesn’t have much space under the rear seat due to exhaust / alarms / tracker & small toolkit hogging the space.
Thanks very much everybody, that was very helpful.
Are they difficult to install? I suppose this is what CBRDan is asking but wording it technically. I was hoping I’d get two radios, plug them into a sort of walkman thingy and off we’d go. Seeing CBRDan’s e-mail I fear this is not the case.
Argh! I am a woman, please tell me this is not as difficult as it sounds?
I did have a look at their website but got even more confused 
They are two little boxes powered by 9v square batteries and you just turn it on , both in the same channel and talk. Basically that’s it!
There are more into it but that’s the basic you need to know to get on with it! Simple
Ive got a complete Starcom kit and its easy.
All the unit needs is a 12v battery power, perm if its the Starcom as the unit switches off when the rider helmet is disconnected, switched if you are using the Autocom (not sure about the new models though).
Helmet into unit, seperate wire from unit to PMR442 radio, this cable is dependent on the radio you use but there are are only a couple radios as most use the 3.5/2.5 combi for headphone/mic connections. Main radios to get are the Cobra but any PMR442 radio will work with any other PMR442. There is a output limit which limits the range but if you get the specials that have higher output its unlikley that anyone will ever notice.
Got an Autocom with Motorola radios and it’s fab. Music, phone and bike to bike chat all in one
Phew, thanks, that was what I was hoping to hear! switch on, switch off, put battery in, go to same channel.
Andrea if you are not sure how to install them, I am sure someone on here would kindly do it for you… I would certainly ask if I wasnt sure (BMW garage where I bought mine from installed mine for a low cut top and a smile
)