WKRP Followup — Scooter Mounts and Communications

My wife and I rode in the WKRP Scooter Rally in Cincinnati last weekend (April 4th). It was our first rally since we starting riding last year. It was a huge amount of fun and an opportunity to meet and talk with a lot of like minded scooter folk.

Two things that seemed to come up in discussions were 1) the setup that we were using to talk to each other while scooting and 2) how to best mount things to the scooter (GPSs being the most popular item). If on the off chance any of the WKRP folks who were curious and wanted more details might somehow find this blog post; well, here are the details:

[Full disclosure: if you buy from the Amazon links that I provide here I make a few pennies off of the sale. It doesn’t add any additional cost to the product if you buy via these links.]

For scooter to scooter communication I picked up an inexpensive set of Midland handsets from Amazon (specifically the MIDLAND GXT900VP4 2 Way 22 Channels Radio) These are great little handsets and have the advantage of allowing for ‘group codes’ so that if more than two people want to be on a sort of party line, they can join in. Another advantage is that they don’t skimp on the provided accessories which include rechargeable batteries, charger (both auto and home!) and some cheap over the ear boom mics. You might be able to make those over the ear pieces work in your helmet but experience tells me you won’t be satisfied by the results.

For best results grab one of the helmet headset kits from Midland. Be aware that there are two different kits depending on whether you have a full face helmet (Midland AVPH2 Closed Face Helment Headset for Midland GMRS) or an open face/modular helmet (Midland AVPH1 Open Face Helment Headset for Midland GMRS).

One of the advantages over the helmet mounted units I saw at the rally is that the Midland kit gives you a push to talk button that you can velcro attach to the left hand grip so that you don’t have to take your hands off the scooter to initiate a call. Granted, this does leave you with a bit of connecting wire that you need to sort out, but typically that isn’t a big deal. Another huge advantage is that buying the two radio kit and two helmet kits is much cheaper (~$120USD) than buying one of the helmet mounted units (~$200-300 each). It also leaves you with a pair of handsets you can use while hiking, camping, working in the yard or wherever you don’t want to have to shout between.

For mounting GPSs or just about anything else to the scooter, get yourself straight over to the RAM Mounting Systems web site. They have a handy configuration wizard that will guide you through the parts and options necessary to mount whatever you want to your ride. Seriously, if RAM doesn’t make a mount for it, then it probably doesn’t exist. I have a ball mount on my GTV that I can mount (using the same attachment arm) either a GPS (Garmin nüvi 660) or a camera (via a threaded tripod-type shoe). Both are solid and easy to get on and off.

Hopefully these little tidbits might help someone who is curious about mounts and scooter to scooter communications.

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