Two Way Communications While ATVing

[Jim1348]

My wife and I are ATVers. Yesterday, for example, we rode our ATVs most of the day and talked again about how nice it would be to have the ability to communicate while riding. I would love to find something that have native Bluetooth built in. We are bother licensed amateur radio operators, so a couple of ham rigs would work. What I have found, however, seems to be a lack of reasonably priced choices of devices that have Bluetooth built in.

So far, I have given some thought to the following:

-FRS/GMRS radios: Motorola does make Talkabout MU350R (I am inclined to prefer VHF, though, if I go analog.)

-MURS: Legal, license-free, this would seem to be a reasonable choice. I am not finding MURS radios, at a reasonable price, with native Bluetooth, however,

-Amateur VHF/UHF: Again, I am not finding native Bluetooth. Otherwise, 2 meter simplex would seem to be a good choice.

-Motorola DTR550s: I have a pair of these. They work well, but they don't have Bluetooth

-Nextel Direct Talk: I have five of these. One I have, the i580, has Bluetooth, but an earlier version of Bluetooth.

-Beartooth: I have looked at https://www.beartooth.com/ So far, however, I haven't been able to find any reviews of these since they have been available.

-Sonnet: These aren't available, yet. If they do what they claim, it could be a good choice. https://www.sonnetlabs.com/

-Gotoky: These also aren't available, yet http://www.gotoky.com/highlights

-LINC: These are also not available, yet. https://www.fantom.io/linc/

-Garmin RINO: These have always struck me as interesting, but overpriced, transceivers. https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/576031

And, I should mention, too, that at the risk of pointing out the obvious, we ride in some very remote areas. As a result, neither AT&T or Verizon has solid coverage in all of the places we ride. We actually carry Verizon smartphones, but I also have an AT&T hotspot with we in case we need to make a wifi call of text.

So, to summarize, what I am looking for is something that could either be in a pocket or backpack, connected via Bluetooth, to our helmet speaker and microphone, that would allow comms while ATVing. (I also know that there are Bluetooth push to talk switched that can be mounted on handlebars.) It seems like it shouldn't be that difficult, but I am really not finding a lot of viable choices right now.

[d119]

Sena 30K.

[SteveC0625]

With the new FRS/GMRS rules that just went into effect on the 18th, you can legally run up to 2 watts on 1-7 and 15-22 now as FRS. 8 to 14 are still 0.5 watt, however.

Those Bluetooth Motorola TalkAbouts may be more attractive now.

[KitN1MCC]

My RTV has VHF and UHF XPR2500 in it

[Jim1348]

I am still researching, but the more I think about it, the more I am wondering if VHF with a digital modulation might be the best way to go. For simplex use, would APCO P25, MOTO TRBO/DMR, NXDN, Icom Death Star, and Yaesu System Confusion all perform equally?

[Bill_G]

Since you're putting the radios on ATV's, that probably means you're traveling to areas you don't know super well, at least from the radio spectrum POV. So, I would stick with plain old conventional analog FM so I could be a good radio tourist, and monitor all traffic before transmitting.

[olderookie]

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