[greatzippy]

I know bike-to-bike systems have been talked about in the past but I could find exactally what I was looking for.
All the b-2-b systems are RF in one way or another ... so shouldn't you be able to communicate with someone who has a differant system then you do??

Does anybody know what units are compatible with each other??
Meaning, If I had a chatterbox I would be able to talk to other chatterbox units and other Autocom Motorola, Cobra, ect units.
In the long run aren't these units like CBs ..... anyone with a CB can talk on a given channel regardless of the brand of CB they have.

 

[ejworthen]

I thought they were all GMRS or FRS radios. If that's the case they should all be able to talk to each other.

 

[greatzippy]

I thought they were all GMRS or FRS radios. If that's the case they should all be able to talk to each other.

Thats what I'm thinkin .... I know the FRS unit and GMRS unit from Chatterbox work together. So you would think that all FRS/GMRS units should work together. The only differance would be the channels the units use.
For example .. say there are 20 channels in the FRS band, if chatterbox uses 1-10 only then it can't talk to a unit that uses 11-20. That's the part I need to figure out .... which units use the same channels.

 

[VDub90]

It's like those little handheld FRS radios they all work together regardless of brand. Radio signals are allocated for different use and private signals cost money. FRS type radios are allocated a certain frequency band so no matter what brand all the channels are the same. Channel 14 on a Motorola FRS is the same as channel 14 on a Cobra FRS. I have buddies in the forestry industry the radios they have are set and can only be used by them they also cost over $1200 each for the right to use that channel privately.

 

[dparadis]

Friends have Motorola and I have Cobra. Works fine and now we bought little in helmet adapters that have both speakers and a microphone that are patch like. Works estremely well BUT the salesguy warned us that the radios do not work well with high-revving motors. Around 8,000 RPMs is where the trouble starts. We bought them anyways thinking we can at least talk when we are in towns and villages.

We figure that "Hey!! Check that b...!" will be the most often used words!!! nfloor

 

[qualdoth]

My gf and I have a couple of radios + kits that we got from Autocom. We used them last year on a 3-day trip to Timmons and they worked like a charm. We were able to use them comfortably up to a speed of 120-130km/h. How noisy/quiet your helmet is does make a difference.

-Q

 

[willvt13]

The manufacturer of the system or the radio does not matter.

Most radios for these systems are FRS (family radio service) radios that you can pick up at your local Walmart. Any other type of radio would require a FCC license. Channel 6 on one frs radio will talk to channel 6 on another frs radio, etc. Some of them have selectable channel guard tones, where both radios would have to use them same code.
There are 14 frs frequencies and typically 38 codes if the radio uses them.

Hope this helps, if you have any other questions let me know, I'm a two-way radio service tech.

Bill

 

[dparadis]

Friends have Motorola and I have Cobra. Works fine and now we bought little in helmet adapters that have both speakers and a microphone that are patch like. Works estremely well BUT the salesguy warned us that the radios do not work well with high-revving motors. Around 8,000 RPMs is where the trouble starts. We bought them anyways thinking we can at least talk when we are in towns and villages.

We figure that "Hey!! Check that b...!" will be the most often used words!!! nfloor

For the sake of clarity, the 8,00 RPM limit is not related to sound or quality of helmet but rather is a problem because of the electro-magnetic-ion-flux present in the sub-space-continuum when the faster blue breaks above the 8,000 RPM threshold and starts separating and leaving electron tracers, thereby drowning radio frequencies in a sea of unseparable noise, rendering said communication a PITA (or something like that...)!!!

This is not a problem with PO-TA-TOE, PO-TA-TOE sounding twins.... :lao

Qualdoth. Are your radios of the FRS or GMRS kind? Or something else?

 

[qualdoth]

Our radios are of the FRS kind. Specifically, we got the "Kenwood FreeTalk LH (FRS 1/2W)" radios. These have a range of .5-1mile, which is more than enough for us since we generally only use them when we are riding together. I can't see a time when we'd be further than 1 mile apart, even on a group ride (which we generally avoid). The shorter range also means that the radios have really good battery life, a nice plus.

We haven't encountered any problems related to the rpm range of either of our bikes, as you had described dparadis. Maybe that's only a problem with a certain type of radio?

Cheers,
-Q

 

[greatzippy]

The manufacturer of the system or the radio does not matter.

Most radios for these systems are FRS (family radio service) radios that you can pick up at your local Walmart. Any other type of radio would require a FCC license. Channel 6 on one frs radio will talk to channel 6 on another frs radio, etc. Some of them have selectable channel guard tones, where both radios would have to use them same code.
There are 14 frs frequencies and typically 38 codes if the radio uses them.

Hope this helps, if you have any other questions let me know, I'm a two-way radio service tech.

Bill

Thxs ... that's pretty much what I was looking for. Basically all FRS units should work together. Only problem I see is if unit A only has chans 1-7 and unit B only has 8-14 ..... but what are the chances of that?? Just get a unit that has all 14 chans and we'd b good.