Paramotor comms

[Guest]

Many people have tried communications with 2m radios and headsets with dissapointing results. Last night Rob and I found the perfect solution to air to air and air to ground comms. Best of all the whole set up for 2 people came to less than 125 quid for everything!

The radios we used were a pair of Cobra PMR radios that I picked up from Costco in Watford for the princely sum of 23.50 quid (sorry but I have a US laptop and havn't got round to change the $ symbol for a pound one). These come with a twin charger and small headsets that are useful for car to car communications, etc. They charge overnight and then last 12-24 hours depending on how much you transmit. They have a line of sight range of 5km so they are fine for several guys flying together or air to ground if you can see each other.

The thing that makes these work where other set ups let you down is the use of these:

http://tinyurl.com/2vq8wj

The Firefox Extreme throat mike costs 45 quid (plus a fiver postage). You can get throat mikes for much less off ebay but they don"t have the important features these have. These units have 2 voice pick ups (cheap ones only have one) and adjust to suit your neck size. Rob is slightly larger than the average bear (sorry mate!) and they worked fine with him. The reason for using a throat mike is that it takes the sound direct from your voicebox rather than sampling the airwaves so there is absolutely ZERO engine or airflow noise transmitted. Throat mikes have been common in military use for years. For listening, the Firefox uses a pair of clear cound tubes (cheap headsets only use one, seriously reducing the amount of speech reaching your ears). The benefit of these is that they are impervious to the interference picked up in wires running to earbud speakers in other installations.

The resultant of the above was that both inflight and air to ground we received crystal clear, easily audible transmissions that were exactly as clear as when we tested the kit on the ground engines off. I know I sound like a salesman but I am nothing to do with either company, just a 'very pleased with my purchase' individual hoping to let others benefit from my experimentation.

Regards

Ian

[Guest]

Bringing this back up to the top after discussing it on another thread.

[admin (Simon W)]

Thanks,

OK I am going to order the MA stuff first, but........ I will order this set up soon after so that I have one here for people to play with.

I like the Idea of the Dudeks becasue Clive is on my doorstep for 1, I like the idea of Parajet and Rad for the same reason, MicroAvionics is not a million miles away and I like the idea of next day type after sales service that you get from all of the people above.

If anyone else fancies going for it, please bring it to the field. (I can say this, there is no better mic than a 'contact' mic. you can whisper and still be heard as clear as day by the listener.....

Assuming they dont have an e-bay set up that is

SW