Daves Blog

Much to my amazement the J&M leads with Autocom connections were delivered on Friday. I was amazed because the last I’d heard from them was that they weren’t expecting them until the end of the week. Perhaps they thought it would be a nice surprise for me but I’d rather just have good customer service. Anyhow, I now had everything I needed to install the Autocom Active Rider intercom and so on Friday night I connected it all and ran some tests with Meike and I both wearing our helmets. The sound quality was excellent and because the autocom has independent volume controls for the rider and pillion I was able to set them at a level comfortable for us both.

Autocom say in their instructions to set the Vox so that you have to speak as though you were speaking to someone 20 to 30 feet away. This seemed to be a factory default setting and so we left it as it is.

With the seat, side panels and tail piece removed it was easy to get to all the wiring and I spliced into the number plate light wiring for the power and fitted a suitable plug and socket so the Autocom can be removed in future without having to cut anything.

On Saturday morning I finished off the install by routing and cable tying the appropriate cables. That is the cables from the Garmin Zumo which I ran under the tank and along the left hand frame rail as well as the headset cables. For these I decided the best place for the riders was to come out at the front of the seat, and I found a nice place for the pillions to come out where it can be safely wedged between the two seat sections. This will keep it nice and secure when I want to ride on my own.

Having fitted everything and put the bike back together I decided to test the install and was surprised to find that I had some electrical interference from the engine but only when speaking. In other words, only when the intercom is on. Very odd… the music and instructions from the Autocom were crystal clear with no interference at all. This must mean it’s the microphone lead that’s picking it up, but as this is buried in the one cable with the speaker leads, it seems very odd. It wasn’t an obtrusive interference and so we decided to try it as it was.

Despite the fact it was actually drizzling and threatening even more rain we put our gear on and headed off for George Whites. Not sure why really - we know the place like the back of our hands and don’t need anything, but it’s nice to sit in the cafe there and have a snack lunch. It was quite windy as well but the intercom seemed to be working just fine. That is until I hit 60mph whereon the vox was activated and we both had a racket being amplified into our ears. On the way back it was so bad that I unplugged my helmet lead.

Meike took this pic in the car park at George Whites but it’s completely deceptive… firstly, despite the weather it was actually busy. In fact I was surprised how many bikes were there and secondly, I do not have battery powered neon rings round my wheels!

Anyhow, back to the Autocom and vox triggering. Concerned that it might be because I was using J&M headsets and not Autocoms own I spent the evening doing a little research on the web and decided two things. Firstly I did need to adjust the vox and secondly I needed to try denser wind socks over the mics. Actually I remembered that I’d fitted the smallest and least dense originally and so still had a middle and really dense one from the original headset purchase. The Autocom instructions say to adjust the vox a quarter turn, but this put it where I really had to shout and some words (such as me and my) where your mouth is closed to start with wouldn’t activate it at all. In the end, and with the denser wind socks I decided to try an 1/8th turn from the stock position.

I also took the opportunity to check the routing of the headset cables and moved the riders cable a little to see if it improved the interference. Having said that though, neither of us had really noticed it once moving yesterday.

This morning we donned our gear again and headed off towards Romsey just for a ride… it was again a bit windy but in a few places the sun was coming through and it was generally a lovely day. Much happier with the Autocom now. It was certainly not triggering the vox at 60mph and not at 70 either. Above 70 it would occasionally trigger as I moved my head but then realised this was because I had my chin vent open. However, I need that open to keep my visor clear so I just had to remember not to look down lol. I will make it just a touch less sensitive again though because at 90mph (don’t ask), it was triggering it full time again. I’m sure the wind doesn’t help, but overall I’m happy with it all and now convinced I’ll be able to make it work perfectly.

On the ride we were sent on a diversion around the town (village?) of Kings Somborne and found some great roads. I can only imagine how much fun they’ll be in better weather. Lovely clear view, long sweeping bends and plenty of overtaking opportunities. Biking heaven.

I decided that I made a mistake buying the J&M Integratr IV. Not because there’s anything wrong with it but because I’ve decided I really want an integrated solution. I wrote to J&M in the US last Thursday, following this realisation, to ask if they would be prepared to consider refunding me if I returned it. From posts on other forums I felt sure they would oblige but to date I haven’t had a reply. Not even a no thanks. So if you’d like one of these, I have a brand new one for sale now.

After much more research I decided the right path to follow is to get an Autocom Active-Rider intercom with their Garmin Zumo lead and the J&M leads from the Elite Headsets to the Autocom. So on Monday I placed my orders.

On Tuesday I received the Autocom products but apart from a confirmation email, nothing further from J&M. This seemed odd as when I ordered the Integratr IV they shipped it on the same day and it arrived two days later. I emailed J&M but 6 hours later had heard nothing so emailed them again. This time they responded telling me they expect the leads to arrive with them by the end of this week. So obviously I’m not going to receive them real quick, but it’s a shame I had to chase to get this information.

The Autocom will fit easily in the tail piece of the Bandit and so once I get the headset leads it should be a pretty straight forward install. I will take the power for the Autocom from the tail light feed which should be more than ample as it draws very little current.

Having discovered what a great tool the Zumo 550 is I decided it would be really useful to have it on the Bandit as well and so I purchased a second motorcycle cradle and power lead from eBay. As I hadn’t used any of the original RAM mounts on the Goldwing I would be able to use them on the Bandit.

It also meant that it would be most useful to install an intercom on the Bandit so I’d be able to hear the Zumo as well as see it. As we already have J&M Elite 584 Series headsets in our crash helmets for the Goldwing, it made sense to get an intercom that would work with these headsets.

The obvious contender being the J&M Integratr IV intercom. So I ordered one from J&M in the USA. My intention with this is not to fit it to the bike as such but rather use it in a tank bag.

I still have my Bagster City Road tank bag from when I had the ST1300 and so it made sense to get a Bagster tank cover for the Bandit… and so you guessed, I ordered one too. Having had experience of their coloured tank covers before (and the awful colour match) I decided to order a black one. With the J&M Integratr IV I also ordered a 12V adapter cable for the power and the appropriate lower cords for our helmet headsets.

Amazingly, it took only 2 days for the J&M kit to arrive and so by midweek I had all the pieces.

To fit all this I was going to need power for the Zumo which I could take from a light feed probably but I also now wanted to fit a 12V accessory socket somewhere to power the intercom. This needed to be somewhere easily accessible. I looked all over the bike and at the circuit diagrams to find a supplied accessory lead but as it isn’t a Goldwing, Suzuki don’t provide one. I therefore decided to run power straight from the battery but as I wanted it to be ignition switched, through a relay triggered by the lighting circuit.

With the inner fairing and screen removed I found there’s plenty of room in the sides and front of the fairing to fit everything. I decided to fit the accessory socket to the inner fairing panel and held the relay in place on the left hand indicator stem bolt. All items were installed with individual plugs and sockets (a lesson I learnt from the Goldwing). The power lead from the battery plugs into the lead already installed for my Optimate charger which means it’s fused and with the back of the tank raised a couple of inches, it was easy to feed it underneath and cable tie it to a few existing pipes and cables to stop it from flopping around.

With all the cables routed correctly and everything wired up I then set about fitting the tank cover. It will take a few weeks for the fit to be perfect as it moulds to the tank but at least I won’t be scratching the tank with tank bags and such. It doesn’t look bad. However, I then discovered that my Bagster City Road tank bag is not really a good option because of where it needs to sit. It ends up so close to the bars, and especially my newly fitted Zumo, that it would be almost impossible to turn the bars left. Fortunately I have an Oxford magnetic bag that is smaller and fits well.

The set up works OK, but it’s not perfect and I’m already thinking I might have bought the wrong intercom. The Integratr IV is certainly a versatile unit with many connection possibilities, but I’m now seeing the inconvenience of having to disconnect it and lug it around whenever we stop. For some people I’m sure that would be just fine, but I think in hindesight I’d like a more integrated solution.

I should have slowed down and read more! More research would have paid off. I’ve since discovered that J&M make lower headset cords to plug into Autocom intercoms and I’m thinking this would have been the much better route to follow. An Autocom unit is small enough to be fitted to the bike semi permanently and I think this would have been a much much better solution.

As usual, watch this space.