If you like to take a pillion along for motorcycle rides, communication can become an issue. As soon as your speed crosses 40 mph it becomes difficult to talk to each other without outside help. So an intercom is the natural solution to that problem. However: what type to go for, a very basic wired intercom, or a wireless walkie talkie type?

Wired Intercoms

When you buy a wired intercom, chances are you’ll get a very basic, extremely cheap one. There are plenty available on Ebay and such. They usually consist of a little plastic box with some jacks to hook up head sets with. Usually they also have an Audio-in line to plug your mp3 player or satnav into.

The headsets that are supplied with these types of intercoms are usually the type that clip onto one ear, with the microphone sticking out towards the front of your head (so they’re not attached to the inside of your helmet!).

Mostly they’re powered with AAA batteries, and are always on (so you need not press any buttons in order to transmit). They do not tend to have an AC or Cigarette Lighter adapter, so you will rely on battery power only - carry some spare batteries if you’re going on a long trip!

Cost: starts at less than £10.

Wireless (PMR) Intercoms

If you choose a wireless option, chances are you’ll need two walkie talkie type devices with plug in head sets. Each person keeps a walkie talkie on their person, plugs in the head set, and even if you need to get off the bike for any reason, you can still communicate with each other. Now because it’s basically a walkie talkie, and cannot transmit and receive at the same time, you need to initiate a transmission before the other person will hear it. This is either done by pressing a button (on the side of the walkie talkie or a separate plug in one) or through VOX ; Voice Operated Transmission (means you talk and it automatically switches on the transmission). For this reason also, walkie talkies don’t tend to have Audio-In sockets so you cannot plug in another device like an mp3 player or satnav.

The sound quality is not as clear as a dedicated wired system, because walkie talkies are affected by outside disturbances. It might even be possible that somebody else in the area is using a similar device on your frequency and you might hear each other. However to counter this, walkie talkies usually have numerous channel and frequency settings so you can find one that is clear.

For powering your walkie talkies, usually there are two options; you run them on batteries (AAA) or in case yours comes with an adapter, plug it into the battery of the bike through the cigarette lighter. Make sure that if you’re using yours plugged into the battery, either you take out the batteries in the walkie talkie or ensure they are rechargeable.

Cost: Starts at £25-30 per walkie talkie. (You’d need two for two people!)

Overall Verdict:

Of course the cost factor might make the decision for you, but if cost is not an issue, consider the following:

If you need something in order to communicate with a pillion only and would both like to enjoy music or satnav instructions along the way, the only way to go is a wired intercom. However: if you do not like to be stuck to each other with wires (when the pillion gets off the bike, he/she would have to unplug the intercom first!) and you might want to communicate even if you are not on the same bike together, get a Walkie Talkie type system for yourselves. An example of one I’ve just bought can be found in another post of mine: Ucom Twintalker 6800 - Wireless Intercom.

So this weekend we ended up at Lidl once again.. we’re in the process of planning a trip on the bike this Easter Weekend, so decided to give the wireless intercom system a go, which Lidl is/was selling with all the other cheap biker stuff they offered. Read more about it in my post “El-Cheapo Biker Gear“.

As I explained in the previous post, Lidl was selling two types of communication devices for use on motorcycles. One for around 8 quid, which is basically a little box, with two headsets and a bunch of generic cell phone connectors. The little box has an audio in jack also, so you could attach it to a satnav or mp3 player and both people can listen to it with their head sets.

This product is a very very basic system - the headsets attach around your ear, and you are both plugged into each other so getting on and off the bike requires unplugging. It is a bit fiddly, the sound quality is OK but don’t expect to be able to hear one another above the roar of riding at motorway speeds.

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to focus on in this post. So since we already bought this basic intercom system last year, now we wanted to upgrade to something more sophisticated, less limiting and able to cope in case we’re riding separate motorcycles. So we picked up the Twintalker 6800 system at Lidl.

What’s included?

Each box contains one system (so if you intend to actually communicate with another person you’ll need to buy two!)

You get:

• Two headphone speakers and a microphone which attach to the inside of your helmet with velcro;
• A push button you can strap to your handlebar, so you press it to transmit before saying anything.
• A walkie-talkie (with belt clip) which can be used separately as well; if you don’t plug in the head set or button, just use the hand held walkie-talkie while walking around town. It supposedly has a range of 5km, however we were not able to verify this just yet.
• Four AAA batteries (rechargeable)
• A car adapter to charge your walkie-talkie with
• An AC adapter also for charging.

The walkie-talkies have 8 channels and 38 frequency settings. This means that you can only hear the other person if both walkie-talkies are set to the same channel and setting - so you have plenty to choose from in order to get rid of interference from other people.

You can also set the walkie-talkie to VOX - Voice Operated Transmission; doing away with the push button system if you prefer. We have not actually tried this yet, so cannot comment on whether wind noise interferes with the VOX.

Practicality: If you’re used to fiddling with this sort of thing, and are able to permanently stick your headset to the inside of your helmet, it may be easy and hassle-free. However, this being our first such system, we played around wit our helmets for quite a while, before finding a comfortable spot for everything. My husband was able to permanently stick his headset in the helmet and get rid of wiring behind the foam padding at the back, however my helmet is not so versatile. This means the headset has to be removed every time you want to go out without the intercom system. The wiring they give with this system is excessively long! This may be useful if you’re putting the walkie-talkie under your seat and feeding the wires through your jacket and into your helmet, but if you want to keep the walkie-talkie on your person, it’s really too much wire!

Sound Quality: The walkie-talkies on their own are fine, sound quality is as you would expect from such a device. It’s not a cellphone or a direct line, so some disturbance is to be expected. Now, when attaching the headsets inside the helmets, that’s where things get tricky. It is absolutely vital for the sound to come across clearly, that the microphone is positioned correctly. When we just tried it the first time, the sound quality was so horrible we couldn’t understand each other. The trick is to position the microphone around 1/2 inch from your mouth, but away from your breath so you don’t keep blowing on it while breathing or talking. We found that keeping it roughly between the lower lip and chin is the most ideal spot. It will still be close enough to pick up your voice, but not your breath.

Finish: The finish is quite crappy; although the wiring and connectors seem sturdy enough from the outside, when you stick the headphones into your helmet, some soldering is uncovered near the velcro, which looks like it might let go should you tug the wires too hard. Also, the connector in the pushbutton wire of my husband’s system was already missing a pin when we got it. Looking inside, all the connectors have extremely flimsy looking pins. Be careful to align both connectors properly before pushing them in, otherwise they will break or bend!

Value: Each Set (walkie-talkie, head set, adapters etc.) comes for 24.95 at Lidl. Now if you compare this with the manufacturer’s own online store; EUR 49.99, I think Lidl is quite reasonable. I must add though that for the usual price, taking into account exchange rates, I wouldn’t have bought this system. However, for little under 25 pounds per piece, it’s OK, maybe there are better systems out there, but they come at a cost!

Overall verdict: They’re not as good as some of the professional intercoms I’ve been exposed to (used in motorcycle training and driving test) but then those system’s didn’t cost just £50 for two sets. I’ll get back to this after using the intercom on a motorway journey with the final decision on whether they’re fun as a toy, or worth using for long trips.