What Radio do I use ?
well his can be a million dollar question but we will cut it down to a few
major considerations and suggestions.
A lot of you will already have radios so hopefully wont have to go into the
expense of purchasing a suitable one for Motorcycle communications .
Ok here are the minimum requirements
1, Must have 40 ch NZ/Australia 477
Mhz ! not 8 ( european ) 445 Mhz 14 or 22 ( USA ) 476
Mhz 9 (China ) 409 Mhz
These other radios are not compatible with NZ walkie talkies because they are
not on our Legal NZ UHF CB frequencies .Ignorance of the law is no excuse
nowdays.... Use of these radios will/may cause and or receive
interferrance from high power commercial users and if you get caught by
the Radio frequency Service now, they will not give you a warning , they
will take the equipment from you and issue you with an instant fine of
many thousands of dollars, ie Pink slip ! (as they will be out to
recoup costs in services for tracking you down and taking you to
court.!) as any of the small non commercial FM broadcasters that have
exceeded their RF power output limitations and got caught will tell you.
! ( they used to be nice folks but now they seem to be like the
police and be a revenue collecting service ) probably because they are so short
staffed
2. Must have the ability to do external PTT You must be able
to plug in an external headset with a PTT button ( like a hand mic)
and be able to make the radio go to transmitt by pushing the button.
( however if the radio doesnt have this feature like the Uniden 041 but
has a snapply fast acting VOX then you can get away without ext
PTT and still use the radio . Note I said snappy VOX not some
slow vox that misses half a sentance before it activates the transmitter )
3. Doesnt have a "roger BeeP" There are a lot of
Asian made walkie talkies that go "beep" when you let the PTT button
go. This is an end of transmission beep and is usually very loud at full
deviation and will drive you nuts on the motorcycle mainly because it
is so loud it hurts your ears ! unfortunately on most
sets you cannot turn
this feature off ( though it would be so easy to enable on/off
when they wrote the software for the radio ) our radios we sell the WT419
and SP2302AA have had this "roger beep" feature removed
at the factory at the time of manufacture . we didnt want to hear it
in our motorcycle headsets
4. Batteries Try and pick a radio that uses AA cells s
,not AAA
cells, as AA cells last so much longer and you are less likely to
have the radio go flat halfway through a ride ! Always carry a spare
set if possible . Some radios have proprietry rechargable packs that
need a special charger so be careful of these unless you purchase a
spare rechargable pack so you dont get caught , There are a few enterprising
bikers who have hot wired their radios into the motorcycle 12V battery
using voltage dropper kits purchase from the likes of Dick Smith /Jaycar or
Altronics or made one up from a design on the Web Our SP2302AA has
an optional charging cable that enables the on board 4.8 V rechargeable pack to
be bypassed hence you run the radio off 12V battery of the
motorcycle .
5 Antenna Unfortunately most manufacturers mostly for economy and
sometimes for Radio Design compliance reasons have the antenna intergral to the
radio , Some radios like the Uniden 075, Digitalker sp2302 and
GME TX630 to name a few have removable antennas , these are great as you
can purchase a decent length UHF CB car radio antenna and mount this om your
bike and really make your system outperform !! it is not uncommon to yeild
a Three times range by just chaning to a more efficient antenna
system
6 Waterproof Waterproof or water resistant whats
the difference ?? usually about $200 !! its is comparatively easy to
make a radio water resistant ie shower proof ( when its opertated
vertically ) but water proof requires special technology ..
and hey a plastic ziplock bag or tank bag is always an option !
7 Connections There are some radios we just dont have connections
for ie the Uniden 075 and 078 radios use a very long 2.5mm stereo plug
with a lockable collar and we just cant source them we dont
have connections for kenwood either only because kenwood UHF CB is just not
popular in NZ however we do have some connections we could make you an
adapter
Well there are a few things to think about and i have tried to put them in order of what I think is a priority , If you have any questions about the use of radios on a motorcycle and some are easily modified to enable this , please ask if you are handy with a soldering iron , im happy to tell you how to do it or far a small charge we could do it for you
Want to go back to Motorcycle communications? ...... click here!
Pinfold Health Services Ltd,1172 Arawa st, Rotorua 3201,New Zealand. ph +64-7-3488850 fax +64-7-3486555 pinfold@xtra.co.nz