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Brief Communicating with other riders is a luxury that you can quickly become dependant upon. Rider communication is great not only for the logistics of directions, notifying other riders of problems and road conditions, signaling to get gas, etc; but also for the ability to include others in your riding experience. Yet, in spite of its glories there are some issues with this product. Overview First, let me say that communicators have come a long way over the years. Riders enjoy clearer reception, greater broadcast distances and more precise control features. The Chatterbox Multisport is probably the best all around product in the communicator market right now. There are more advanced products which offer more features, but none perform quite to the level of the Multi-sport and certainly not for the price. Retail is $199 but they are regularly available for as low as $150 through online retailers. Details Here is how it works: the Chatterbox is essentially a FRS radio with a separate headphone which is mounted inside of your helmet. The communicator is available in a full face or open faced helmet design and comes as a complete kit to get you talking. The microphone, mounting brackets and Velcro are enclosed in the kit. It comes with a "push to talk" feature which I think of as a problem on a bike. Somehow most riders don't happen to have an extra hand available to activate communication. What you will most likely use is the voice activated microphone. The unit is designed with a volume switch which doubles as the off switch on the top, the antenna and headphone jacks on one end and the vox switch, which is the microphone sensitivity control, on the other end. Mounting: Now, they design this unit to be mounted onto your helmet but the more realistic alternative to the mounting problem is to carry the unit in a tank bag or jacket pocket. Doing this requires you to purchase an additional extension cable to run from the microphone out to the jack on the actual talkie. The cable costs between $15-$30 but is just a standard PS2 cable that you would use to extend a computer mouse. If you want to save a buck you can pick one up at the local computer store for $7 but it will probably be grey instead of black and will not have the coiled design to keep the excess cord from getting in your way. The unit is about 4" long, 3" wide and 1" thick; it is not heavy and will fit in the pocket of most men's jacket. It will not, however, fit into smaller pockets or on all women's jackets. Headphones: The headphones are about 2 inches in diameter each and are strung along a thin cable with the microphone attached and Velcro into position. They have a thin stretchy foam cover like you would see on a inexpensive walkman. Many people have complained that these microphones are of very poor quality and require constant replacement. Apparently the wiring goes out and they will lose one ear or the mic...though I have not had this problem. The headphones work out best if your helmet has removable cheek plates where you simply remove your lining and either stick the Velcro onto the inside shell of the helmet, or you can make a small cut in the cheek plate and insert the headphone directly into the padding. My helmet, however, does not have the removable cheek plates so I am forced to put my earphones on top of the pads. Since helmets should fit snugly, this means that the earphones press against the ears and cause soreness and make it difficult to get the helmet on and off. This is a reasonably small sacrifice for the advantages. The bigger issue with the install in this type of helmet is that the cables cannot go underneath the liner and they tend to fall out of the helmet every time it is removed. Fixing this requires several minutes of fiddle to get them back into position. If your helmet has the removable cheek plates this will not be a problem for you and your earphones and cable will stay in position and you will probably never even notice they are there. Microphone: To get the microphone to activate you need to make a loud noise, then speak loud enough to keep it active. The unit also seems to respond better to the deeper tones of male voices than the higher voices of women. If the vox is turned up to the point that you can speak at a conversational level, you will have problems with it being constantly active when you are at speed...which means no one else can talk to you! The easiest way activate the microphone is by blowing into. Though yelling into it will work, it will take a second to activate and the listener will lose part of what you are saying. In my helmet the road noise from the design tends to set it off unless the vox is turned way down. My helmet was designed with a large space at the chin area, resulting in the microphone being a long ways from my mouth. Since the area is so open, a lot of air blows through this open area when I am on the road. If your helmet is designed in this fashion a chin deflector would probably improve the performance of this unit for you. One final note on the microphone, I find that mine tends to fall out of my helmet a lot. The Velcro doesn't seem to have enough sticky and it falls off from time to time. This might be caused by the warm temperatures in my area making the adhesive less effective or by straight shape of microphone trying to fit into the curved shape of the helmet. Controls: My unit has a very sensitive volume control (this compared to several other units of the exact same model) and it tends to turn of its own accord if you are not ginger about putting it in your pocket or tank bag. This is a frustration since the volume can become deafening and it is impossible to adjust it while you are on the road. The jack placement at the opposite end as the vox/sensitivity knob poses some issues as well. When you are riding, road noise and wind can cause the microphone to kick on constantly making it impossible for other riders to communicate with you. Since you have to place the unit into your pocket or bag so that the cord can plug into the jack your vox knob ends up being inaccessible which means you have to pull over to make any adjustments. My preference for future models would be for the volume and vox to both be digital controls so that they would have a fixed setting. Since the volume is also the off switch, you have to readjust the setting every time you use it. If the vox was a digital setting, or at least had the knob on the same side as the microphone jack, you could manage the controls much easier. HJC offers a unit with an LCD display...yet it only displays the channel and does not offer you the most needed controls of volume and vox. Features: The HJC-FRS Multi-sport model offers 2 channels which is usually adequate. Other models boast many more channels but at a significantly inflated cost. The volume and vox controls on most units I have encountered are a bit overly sensitive making it especially difficult to dial in when you have gloves on. My unit has exaggerated sensitivity on the volume and will sometimes turn itself up while I am riding down the road. Some people have actually taped the knobs into position to keep the settings in place. Many of the features that the kit boasts are wasted on me. I do not use the mounting kit, the hands free device and I only use it for communicating with other riders while I have my helmet on so I don't care about the other headphone jacks and speaker system. They claim a 2 mile range for this unit but I believe this is measured on a clear day, in a straight line, on an unobstructed stretch of flat country road. Although those distances might be possible, the real-world performance is substantially less than 2 miles. I found that around a bend and a few hundred feet can result in loss of communication. The battery is an NiMH lithium ion battery which is about as good as you can get right now. It doesn't last a long time, but it allows enough battery life for a few short rides or 1-2 longer rides. You will need to get into the habit of charging it after every use or you will find yourself out of the loop. Finally, let's talk about cost. I love the ability to talk to other riders enough that I forked over $150 to buy this product, but I cannot feel good about the investment. I know that I can pick up any ol' talkie system, with batteries and a plethora of channels and subchannels, for about $15. Although they do not offer the microphone and accessories, I simply cannot understand how these addons can result in up to 10 times the price. I challenge these guys to give me their rationale for the expense of this item, 'cause I would really like to know.
  BriefEveryone at SBR uses a Chatterbox system of some sort. Many of us have used this product for years with no major problems and although a few have had problems I believe the product's benefits still outweigh the negatives. Overview These units were designed to be mounted on the helmet and none of us at Street Bike Review are using them the way they were designed. I believe that many of the problems with the knobs, range and such would not be as prevalent if they were mounted as designed. I think that most riders, myself included, do not like the idea of mounting the unit on the helmet, choosing instead to use the unit from jacket pockets or tank tags. I have not personally had problems with adjustments although I think that the range does suffer a little. In spite of the diminished range in this capacity I think the unit still works great for group riding. If I have run out of range I figure that I should hold up and wait for the rest of the group to catch up. Details I have been using my plus unit now for well over two years and the only problem I have had is with the headset. For some reason the headset seems to keep going out on me, but no one else seems to have this problem so perhaps I am a little too hard on them. Luckily, these units carry warranties by the manufacturer for one year and can be replaced at the shop where you bought them or via the website. In my experience the company has always been eager to address and resolve problems quickly. A little adjustment is required when learning to speak properly through the system. In order to activate the microphone you must first make a noise then pause or the beginning of your sentence will be cut off. When speaking into the unit you must raise your voice to be much louder than normal to keep the microphone active. When you do this the VOX system actually works very well. You also must wait a second or two after the person is done speaking before you speak since the unit doesn't cut off immediately after the person has finished speaking. All two-way non full duplex radio systems work this way so it is not a problem of this particular system, it's just the way these things work. Noise from the helmet is obviously relative to the type of helmet you wear. If you're using a helmet that is noisy, you're going to get more wind rushing in and triggering the microphone. Thus you will have to raise the VOX control and speak even louder to trigger the microphone. But at average speeds below 55-60mph, there should not be much trouble. I've found that noise levels aren't loud enough to affect the microphone at these slower speeds. I've personally tried other options like using cheaper FRS hand held radios and have found that they can't compare to the features and audio quality of the Chatterbox systems. In fact, I couldn't get any other radio to work properly at all even during normal around town riding. The price may still be a bit high, but I believe that for the money there is no other alternative available which can compare to the Chatterbox systems.
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