KC and I have been considering getting a ‘real’ bike-to-bike communication system and with that comes the discovery that almost all GMRS / business radios need to be licensed. With a Technician Ham ticket being a mere weekend course and with that opening the possibility of ‘real radios’, I’m interested in hearing from any of you that have your ticket.
What portable rigs have you tried, anyone have any experience with the Kenwood TH-F6A, what about the Yaesu VX-7R, or newer. Anything from ICOM?
I have an ICOM-A23 for aviation that I’m very pleased with, but this is a new application so they may not be the incumbent that they are in the aero world.
Any comments or thoughts around portables are welcome. Since it is a bike application, I don’t have room for a mobile sized unit.
It occurs to me that I don’t even know which of my friends have a ham ticket, so feel free to educate me.
My friends all have VX-7R’s and I find them big/clunky and more feature-rich than I need. I bought a VX-3R which is relatively small, probably half to 1/3 the volume of a 7r…… It’s not submersible but it’s water-resistant whereas the 7R is submersible… I opted for size over swimmability.
I have the VX-7R. I also have a short aftermarket antenna that shrinks the form factor quite a bit. And I have the desktop charger/stand because I typically use the 7R as the world’s most expensive weather broadcast receiver. From my perspective the main advantage of the 7R is the ability to transmit at 5 watts vs. 1.5, which is nice in the backcountry but probably irrelevant for motorbiking. So I basically agree with Herb and would add that the 3R saves you a bit of dough. For riding motorbikes, I would imagine a simple FRS system would be the cheapest way to go.
With an after-market whippie antenna, my VX-3R has toggled VE6RCB from my livingroom, 75km away, line of sight… That’s plenty good. For real distance, I use crossband repeat through my mobile.. As long as I’m within range of my truck, I can hit whatever I need. But that’s a different use-case than biking..
http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/1839
Regarding FRS;
Trouble is that the intercom manufacturers (the equipment that interfaces the helmet speakers to the mics to the other equipment) all expect you to purchase one of their own GMRS radios. They are approximately 2x the price of the unbranded version of the radio. In most cases they get a Yaesu or Kenwood radio that has been programmed with customer frequencies from the manufacturer.
With this in mind, and the limited range available to GMRS, I was thinking that going with something in the amateur band might make more sense. We’ll see. If we want to talk to anyone else, we’ll need GMRS frequencies anyway.
Most folks report outstanding success from ham / GMRS applications and seem miserable about the FRS applciations.