Batboard

I am thinking of adding a hand held control head to my XPR5550 when I install it in my Ford F350.
Can anyone that has one tell me how the audio level and quality from the speaker is in the hand held control head ?
Is it worth the money?
Also does it really control everything so I wont need access to the radio at all?

Bill-WA6PMW

Yup...just installed this last week in my truck (2012 F250).... XPR5550e with HHCH

Pics here:
http://batboard.batlabs.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=114720

The audio from the HHCH is plenty loud. I'm rather impressed. If you look at the BSM for the HHCH, page 5-12 shows a pretty substantial speaker inside the housing. From the extermal housing, there's no "speaker grill" except for the area in between the volume up/down buttons. It's very small for a "grille" but the speaker packs a good punch. The speaker looks to be about the same size as that in a normal XPR portable.

The HHCH controls everything. It has plenty of buttons. 4 programmable buttons for both short and long press each, three side buttons with both short and long press each themselves as well, and then there's the normal TRBO menu items. It's almost "too much" and I often forget what I programmed each button for!
The only thing you'll need to access the control unit for is the USB-B connector for programming. Any off-the shelf USB-A to USB-B cable will work (i.e. the kind you get with a printer). So leave yourself some room to hook into it for programming. You can also program over Wi-Fi, I believe, but I never use that as the signal in the driveway is often weak and I don't trust it.

When I listen to the locals transmitting with them, they do not sound as good as they did when they used the original mike, & display that was mounted to the radio. It's not terrible, but not as good as the original configuration. GARY.

N4KVE wrote:When I listen to the locals transmitting with them, they do not sound as good as they did when they used the original mike, & display that was mounted to the radio. It's not terrible, but not as good as the original configuration. GARY.

Once I got my radio operational in the truck, that's the first thing I tested... asked several people to give me feedback (no pun intended) on the audio quality. I asked over both analog and DMR. I have the 40W version of the radio. Everyone indicated the audio was just fine.

There can also be other factors at play such as radio firmware, microphone ACG, and/or other CPS settings. FWIW, I have both analog and digital mic AGC disabled and the rest of the audio profile is bone stock (basic noise suppression, no trill enhancement, no AF suppressor, etc).

The guys here all have the newest FW, & AGC on. Like I said, not terrible, but noticeable.