Bike to Bike - Cobra

[Lumiya]

....because ~16cm is a quarter wave at 446 MHz ?

SSSSHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

I wanted to see if we had another G or M hiding in our midst!!!! Now you;ve ruined it..TYPICAL YOU!!!!!!

:ky:

Kymmy

[Cabby]

Well... the throat mike arrived....seems like you need a small neck for it but maybe you just move it round to put the mic pick up over your voice box. Or maybe they pick up that well.

Still it won't matter much if the radios dont turn up in tomorrows post

[Cie]

SSSSHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

Doh!

Are you bringing a big bag of radios this weekend?

[severs]

I wanted to see if we had another G or M hiding in our midst...

Outed! Guilty as charged. I'm ex-G6UJR. I used to be a radio amateur, but these days I suppose I'm a radio professional. Or a Broadcasting Engineer, as Carole Nash describe me.

[Cie]

Ex?

Didn't you know we have a license for life now? Not that I've used a radio in anger for almost 2 years.

[severs]

Yes, but my licence lapsed a long time ago and I have to re-apply to get my "licence for life". Haven't got around to that yet.

Have no interest in using amateur bands any more I guess. The restriction - that you can only communicate with other amateurs - defeats the purpose that I use R/T for.

Hooray for PMR446!

[Lumiya]

Yes, but my licence lapsed a long time ago and I have to re-apply to get my "licence for life". Haven't got around to that yet.

Have no interest in using amateur bands any more I guess. The restriction - that you can only communicate with other amateurs - defeats the purpose that I use R/T for.

Hooray for PMR446!

I had this issue recently myself, expired about 4-5 years back. But I was on thier computer so they sent me out an application form which I returned with £20 (one off payment) and I now have my lifetime licence (though you do have to confirm every 5 years that you still want it and the details are correct but that can be done online)

Kymmy

[severs]

Well I got around to renewing my licence as suggested. They let me have my old callsign back.

So now I've ditched the home made intercom and I am using a Starcom digital in the FJR1300. The radio it's plugged into is now a Wouxun KG-UVD1P programmed for Amateur 2m and 70cm bands, PMR446 and the little-known VHF LPD 149 MHz bands, and my riding chums are all using the same. We get better range from the 149 band and revert to 446 when there is someone among us who only has a PMR446 radio. An external antenna is the norm here, I started with a cheapo Nagoya magnetic hanging downwards from the Givi top box rack right at the back, which works better than I expected. The radio is powered from the bike via a battery eliminator. These days I have a proper (but doctored) professional grade antenna. The radio has a SMA-BNC adapter fitted so that all the antennas are bayonet fitting.

When riding on my faithful 650TA I am pretty much always solo so I just wear the headset and radio on a belt mount with a three-quarter-wave (at 70cm) or quarter-wave (at 2m) floppy aeriel. I don't bother wiring it into the bike so it still works when I get off. I fitted an oversize battery pack.

I still built my own headsets though. The throat mic is great but sweaty in hot weather. I have just started experimenting with a bone-conduction combined mic/earpiece so that nothing is round my neck.

I also have been using earpieces with custom earmoulds. A lot of people are using these, but they cost a fortune. So I started experimenting with making my own. Since it got a bit weird squirting bath silicone into my ear, I bought a few Radians brand mould-it-yourself earplug kits and they turned out to be brilliant. I highly recommend them; I bought mine from the "Peter's Plugs" web shop on evilBay. I settled on red kits for right hand plugs and blue ones for left, although one single colour kit is enough for three individual plugs in my tiddly ears and costs well under a tenner.
These are also great for making pure earplugs to exclude noise: washable, ultra comfortable and utterly silent, mmmmm. Also great for undisturbed sleep during the day, as I am a shift worker.
In addition, I tried buying a pair of in-ear headphones which are cheap clones of the "etymotic" type and pulling the rubbery ear pluggy ends off them. I then shoved them into a set of Radians ear moulds as they were curing in my ears. After the moulds had cured, I popped the headphones out of the moulds and drilled holes through the moulds into the bit which extends into the ear canal. Once the headphones were re-fitted, I had custom soundproof earmoulds with built in headphones for under £16.

One word of warning - my dog can't tell the difference between Radians ear plugs and meaty dog treats. I don't know how much of an idiot this implies my dog must be, but I lost a pair anyway. They do not seem to have harmed the dog on the way through, though.