Opinions on intercoms

[Wolf]

Once bought a really budget intercom and found that wind noise above 40km/h used to wash it out.

Want to get a decent intercom once my wheels are going so I can chat with Stray.

Oh, as she wants her own bike I s'pose I'll have to get a UHF radio unit.

[Biff]

when you say higher than -100 dBm do u mean 0 through to -100 OROROROR -100 through to -1000000000000

-100 dBm through to -100000000 etc
In reality however, you'll be lucky to find anything that get's close to -115 dBm unless you want to spend a bit more and get a really good piece of kit.

[vifferman]

I recently bought one of Pinfold's bike to pillion intercoms - $117, and very good quality. We've used it only once so far, going to the Paeroa races, and it made things a lot more fun, but also I found it a bit distracting, partly because we had an issue (now solved, I think) where above 90km/h it crackled badly. Turned out to be the velcro on the back of my microphone, because I didn't have it stuck on properly, and the wind was making it vibrate slightly and physically transmit that to the mike. Otherwise, it was very clear, although the microphones are very sensitive (hence the problem with the velcro) and we could hear all sorts of things that you don't normally notice. Surprisingly though, wind noise wasn't really an issue.

Mike Pinfold has excellent customer service - when we bought it in January, he waited at his office in town for us to turn up, and spent maybe 30 minutes helping us to fit it and sort it out. He also gave us some different spare headphone cushions to try if the standard ones didn't fit.
When I told him about our recent trial, he was happy to take the unit back for a replacement if it was faulty in any way. I doubt if he makes much money fron it, so he seems to be prepared to go way behind what is reasonable customer service.

There are a choice of headphones and headphone pads. I was initially sceptical, but as Mike said, the pads do cut out a lot of noise, so I didn't need to wear earplugs as a I normally do. However, we were using the unit at lowest volume, so if wind noise was a problem, we could have used ear plugs and the headphones, and still been able to hear.

My wife's headset is stuck in her helmet, but the lining of my X-Vent wouldn't allow the velcro to adhere properly, and I was worried about dislodging the headset when taking the helmet off and on at least twice a day for commuting, so I've got a modified balaclava with the headset in, and all I do is put that on first, get the headphones in the right position, then pull my helmet on over the top. This stops the headphones moving and/or the tops of my ears folding over (a potential problem). Then I just stick the velcro on the mike to the fluffy velcro dot inside my chinbar, plug everything in, and away we go.

I've also discovered that the plug for the lead to the headset can be plugged into a discman or MP3 player, so when I'm by myself I could potentially listen to music. I don't think it'd be proper stereo (just dual mono), but that's OK.