AR7E - Alcester Racing 7's Equipe
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Aha! Well, wearing a helmet has some drawbacks - not being able to hear the Road Angel, phone or passenger for three... There are various intercom systems out there on the market (Peltor, Terratrip to name just two) - but the one that seems to get the biggest rave reviews is Autocom. Strictly speaking, these units are marketed for bikers (they have such uses as bike-to-bike communications for tuition, for instance) - but there is nothing really bike-specific about them. Key Benefits of Autocom
Basically (and briefly), the noise canceling microphones give a very clean sound and tend not to amplify wind noise at all. The VOX activation means that the microphones only activate when you speak rather than amplifying wind noise and breathing etc. The 'phone' input is quite clever. If you receive a call, the music input fades down to 50% volume for the duration of the call - and then fades back up. We've had a custom extra lead made up that mixes the audio output of the Road Angel with the phone - so if there are any speed-camera alerts (or phone calls...) these won't be missed... The jury is out (again) regarding the music input - we're not sure that driving a 7 with 'Bat outa hell' on the 'coms is such a good idea - but the option is there. DisappointmentThe Autocom works (we went for the top-of-the-range Pro-7-Sport) - but we'll disappoint you by making you wait for a full write up... Update - Mar 2004Still no write up? What have we been up to? Well, we're still tweaking. Shortly after receiving the custom lead for the Road Angel input (which was tested in the labs at Autocom HQ...) we started wearing ear-plugs with the helmets in order to combat the tinnitus-inducing wind-noise that we experienced running aeroscreens... ...of course, this meant that the audio level coming from the ear phones was significantly reduced and it was hard to hear the Road Angel, let alone carry out a conversation on the phone. A quick check of the Autocom site shows that they stock some 'uprated' ear phones designed to work with ear plugs (only downside is that they are nor rated for music - but that is not an issue for us). Sam, (at Autocom - what a star!), fitted a set for us to evaluate earlier this month - and they work fine. We can hear the Road Angel much more clearly - and voice traffic seems A-OK too. We've also scored a set of Autocoms conventional 'can' headsets for use without a helmet - but initial testing shows that we desperately need the 'open face' helmet kit which covers the microphone and should (we hope) prevent wind-noise from activating the VOX. Autocom do mention on their site that these 'can' headsets are suitable for micro-light use, so unless they're day-dreaming, we should be OK. Joy! |
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