Lemons Radio Tech (Page 2 of 5)

If you coil it in, say, a loop no smaller than 8" in diameter, you'll be fine.  Zip ties are ok as long as you don't fasten them like The Hulk.  After that, you just need to use the usual wire precautions (no pinch points, no hot spots, etc.)

It's a 5-pin Mini Din.

The wiring in those is more or less conductive dental floss and the mini-dins are easy to misalign which leads to bent pins and a loss of communication.

As long as its in a open area and not next to any metal you are good to go. Next best thing is to mount it as high as poss or run a roof mount antenna.

Hope this helps-

Cheers, Shawn Sampson

Thanks guys.

I wonder if the wing on the roof would effect a roof mounted antennae?

The MT352R is a Motorola Talkabout GMRS/FRS radio with a fixed antenna.

Some teams in the past, drilled a hole in the roof for the antenna to stick out. Not sure how much it helped.

Whatever you decide to do, try to get a good idea of track coverage during practice. That way you will know when and where you can communicate with the car.

In order to run an external/roof mount antenna you typically need a business radio. Their were some older GMRS radios that did not have FRS which had removable antennas allowing for external antennas.

This might be a bit of a dumb question, but is it completely implausible to just use a hand-held radio in the car, and not bother with the headset stuff? Is it likely completely inaudible and inaccessible?

I'm thinking the answer to both is probably yes, but was just wondering if anyone had any experience of it. I don't want to go down the route of in-helmet audio kits, mainly because if we do that everyone will think we'll be fast and we aren't.

Chris

The answer to all of the above is pretty much YES. Some teams have gotten a dash mounted radio and a loud speaker to work.

A handheld radio is a FAIL on multiple levels. I would recommend against that one.

But thinking out of the box is welcomed. The Blue Goose Audi team down here has a pretty unique setup (or at least it's the only one I've seen like this). They have a Bluetooth setup in each driver's helmet, then a bluetooth-compatible radio head unit and big stereo speakers and an in-car cell phone. I'm not sure how the driver dials out (or if he even can?) but I know that if the pit wants to know something, they just call the car.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend it, as I think you want the driver able to talk to the pits pretty much on demand and without waiting for the cell phone network to connect you (especially given the somewhat flaky nature of cell service at remote race tracks), but it is unique and kind of funny to hear.

I think I stated my feelings about this earlier in teh thread....

DO NOT GET CHEAP RADIOS!

We did and they sucked.  We eventually stepped it up to a proper car harness, helmet setups, with business radios and an external mount antenna.   SOOOOO MUCH BETTER!

We spent 3 times teh amount of money we needed to buy buying different crap trying to get the system reliable.  Just get the good stuff right away.

Rob R.

I completely endorse this attitude, but it may be slightly misplaced for a new team that may be trying to discover if they are hooked on our addiction. Believe it or not, there are teams that form, do one or two races, and disband. For those teams, it would not make a lot of sense to sink serious $$ into radio set ups.

So my advice for a new teams, still trying to see if they are really & fully addicted, would be to skip the radios entirely for the first race or two. Use a pit board  and hand signals/flashing headlights from the driver. That really is good enough for your first couple of races, and gives your team enough time to figure out if they are in it to stay. Then if so, spend the $$ on quality radio set ups. IMHO, etc.

This was my situation at CMP. New car and didn't want to start spending a lot of money until I knew it worked. I chose a pair of Baofeng radios ($80/pair), and purchased a couple of battery eliminators ($4 each). I have a friend who's good with electronics and he wired in a more stout Kenwood audio plug and a PTT button, and I installed a 1/4 wave 450-470 antenna. I left the extra antenna coax coiled and zip tied to the dash bar. All of my drivers had decent IMSA-style headsets/mics which would be necessary with any radio set-up. The system worked perfectly all weekend, even at the farthest point on the track. The battery eliminator plugs into a lighter socket attached to the radio box, and the battery in the "crew" radio lasted 7 hours before we switched it out.

This is the final wiring with the excess in a coil. The radio is easily reachable by the driver (not shown in the photo).