While I believe Autocom to be a great communication system for my motorcycle, I had pretty much been limited to using it to listen to my MP3 player. When I would try to communicate with it my success was pretty limited. I had better luck hearing than talking.
While neither Jean-Francois or I wish to be chatty while riding the Autocom has been a useful tool when he goes around a curve ahead of me and I get warnings that there are dogs or a herd of cows in the road. When we got separated in Mexico coming back through Chihuahua it was wonderful to hear his voice tell me what kilometer marker he was at.
In reverse I would like to let him know when I would like to stop, but unfortunately it ended up being a constant source of frustration when I couldn’t get it to work.
Jean-Francois theorized it might be the higher pitch of my voice. I knew I wanted it working reliably for this 12,000 mile trip.
I started calling Top Gear to get trouble shooting ideas. What it boiled down to is that I could hear and be heard on my cell phone, hear my MP3 player, hear an be heard on the comm radios alone, and hear someone speaking through the comm radio with the Autocom, but I could never be heard.
I got on the Top Gear site to check replacement cables and saw everything was on sale. I called and found out that they were discontinuing Autocom. I became concerned and called dealers all over Texas and they had dumped all their Autocom inventory. While Autocom has great potential it definitely takes fine tuning to get it to work well. All the dealers just sold the parts and had no expertise in the fine tuning, so I wasn’t surprised they decided to no longer carry the radios.
I called Top Gear again and they told me Tulsa Truck had a lot of inventory if I needed cables and a high level of knowledge. I was surprised that in my several conversations with them not one person had mentioned they were no longer the US importer for Autocom. I appreciated them still providing a high level of friendly service.
I had exhausted what could be accomplished over the phone. I needed to switch out cables and maybe even the Autocom itself so I headed up to Oklahoma to Tulsa Truck.
The good: Keith is the owner of Tulsa Truck, long time user and believer in Autocom, and an expert in fine tuning.
The only variable is what comm radios you want to invest in to talk through. I personally am not willing to spend $150 each for the recommended Kenwood radios, but made the mistake of going too cheap (Motorola T6500) so Keith suggested I get the Motorola MR350R. The two big improvements offered by moving to this radio was a jump from 2 mile to 35 mile range and the addition of a mini USB battery charger port that can be hard wired onto the motorcycle power eliminating the need for constant battery changes. I bought them at Best Buy for $79.99, but I’d suggest shopping the internet where they can be purchased for a lot less.
Since there is a problem with female voices triggering the VOX a push to talk button was added to my left hand grip. Even this button has great flexibility since it has a switch that can be set to always on, PTT, or VOX.
The bad: While Keith is generous with his time, it turned into too much time. I got there on a Monday morning at 8:00. We got to testing for problems about 4:30. The time between then was spent dealing with a break in the previous night, another customer from California who stopped in, and changing everything to the way Keith thinks it should be done. In restrospect I realize I should have put a stop to this since it spun way out of control. There was nothing wrong with the way my tank bag was powered, it was just different from how Keith thinks it should be done. While my speakers hurt my ears sometimes, they worked consistently and I could hear them clearly. Both my tank bag and helmet were taken and modified without asking me if I was okay with their ideas.
The testing showed my unit wasn’t working and Keith wanted to go home at 5:00 so I had to spend another night in Tulsa and return to the shop at 8:00 the next morning.
The ugly: I wanted the radios to work, but not at any price. Not including fuel and time it was $110 at Best Buy for radios and USB cables, two nights at a motel, and before leaving I was presented with a $325 invoice for parts only. I was in a hurry to get on the road since I had an appointment in Dallas, but once I returned home and reviewed the invoice I realized how overpriced some items were and returned $150 in parts.
I would recommend a buyer ask every step of the way about pricing. He had oversold a headset when I had asked for speakers only to repair Jean-Francois’s helmet. Keith sells 12 gauge SAE plug battery jumper cables which are an incredibly good idea since they are compact and light weight. The problem is the price tag of $50. I found the plugs he used and ordered them for $10, soldered and heat shrinked them myself, and now have the same jumper cables packed for $40 less.
Unfortunately the radios were barely tested. He got them to transmit successfully one time Tuesday morning and was ready to be done with me. Honestly, I was very ready to be on my way too. I wish less time would have been spent on trying to change how I do things and have things on my motorcycle and diagnostics would have been the first order of business.
In all fairness I need to say that Keith did not charge me for labor, which sounds like a great deal on the surface. Read on.
They cut a hole in the bottom of my expensive tank bag. I don’t know about anyone else, but I have carefully maintained the structural integrity of my tank bag to maintain the waterproofness. I had added two ports for wires.
They changed one of the ports to an SAE plug. I’m fine with that. What I had worked fine, but the plug will work too. What baffles me is that the other wire port was ignored and a hole was cut in the bottom of the bag to feed the power line from the push to talk button. I don’t think cuts should be made into other people’s equipment without asking permission first.
I had to spend a considerable amount of time patching and properly sealing the hole after I returned home.
Keith didn’t like how I had my helmet set up and cut into the cheek pads to insert the speakers inside. More cutting without asking me if I was okay with it. Sloppy job of cutting and speakers behind so much fabric and foam that I couldn’t hear a thing on the way home.
Again I had to spend a considerable amount of time returning the speakers to their original position and patching the chopped up fabric on the cheek pads.
Summary: I believe Keith is well intentioned and even generous person. He made the offer to get me working and not charge any labor. But I wouldn’t call this an economical fix. It took eleven hours and a lot of dollars to get one successful radio transmission.
I hope the new radios and PTT solve the problem. I guess we’ll find out in a couple weeks.
Exped Downmat 9 & Exped Downmat Deluxe 9 – each were a little bit of a pain to inflate compared to the Thermarest self inflating, but oh what a difference. Properly inflated each is thick and comfortable and completely insulates you from ground cold. In Natashquan it got down into the 40’s and with 35 degree sleeping bags we were warm and comfortable with the Downmats. Besides comfort they each pack easily back to original size (I felt the Thermarest took a lot of work to get it compressed to original size). Ditch the bag for the Downmat 9 and use straps to secure it or it will be too big to pack. The deluxe compressed well with the compression bag that comes with it. Both take a little practice and time for both inflating and deflating, but I don’t think I would ever travel with anything else.