Whats your comms unit of choice?

I am interested in the Sena EXPAND long range bluetooth intercom, does anyone use this?
 
CanaryBoss said:
Is there a way to use those hands free?
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Yeah... you can use VOX mics on them (Voice Actuated Switching) but we just use regular speaker mics clipped close to neck. Just key the mic and talk, don't have to move the mic. That way, the radio can be clipped on belt, harness, whatever and the mic clipped where it works best.

No problem with range.. several miles on high power. With portable repeater in the pickup, handhelds can be left on low power and range is about 20 miles or more, depending on terrain.
 
Yeah, I've got one of those I tried... they work, but I didn't much care for the sound of them. It's pretty muffled sounding. Depends on your voice, though... had the wife try it and it wasn't bad at all.

They get better all the time, so that's certainly a good option. I don't like VOX at all, and don't use it on any of my ham radios, either... but I can always free up one hand when I need to, so manually keying the radio is easy. It has a TX-RX switch mounted about a foot down the cable to the radio, so it's real easy to just reach up and key it when I want to talk.

Of course, for me, the speaker-mic does all this for a LOT less money, and they're not as fragile.
 
These speaker-mics are very cheap, I got a 10-pk of them for about $40 and they work on the Baofeng and other handheld radios. They're cheap enough that I don't worry about what happens to them... pretty much disposable at $4 each.

VHF-UHF-SpkrMic.webp

Clips on back of the radios and speaker-mics are quite good. Mic is light enough that you can clip it to the collar of a T-shirt, but I use suspenders with harness and prefer to clip it to them.
 
CanaryBoss said:
So last I checked I have about 16 Sena units. Only been using them about 6 months now and they sure can piss me off, but they are also priceless. I have a dozen or so smh10 units and 4 of the newer smh11. I like the 10s better.
It does suck how they have tiers of connection. If everybody stops what they are doing for 5 minutes you can get everybody reconnected after an accidental head bump that kicks you off. Ultimately, the 5 minutes saves you more than that and the safety is better when your connected.
I have never had range issues, but the systems are a little rickety and easy to damage because of the loose wires. Ultimately, that’s what your going to find in a one size fits all comm set.
I personally use kask with a visor and 3m ears that I customized to run the wires through. As for all my guys (cause that’s a $400+ dollar setup) I buy the knockoff helmets on amazon. I think they are somewhere between 30 and 40 bucks and $15 3M ear muffs. All said and done it’s a $200ish helmet and my guys love em.
It all depends on application in my opinion. When I’m on a 3 to 5 man crew, they are great. But, sometimes we all get together for very large projects and we will have as many as 15 men on one site and when that happens you can forget it. We just basically connect the most important people together and leave everybody else out. We just tell them to turn the unit off so they don’t screw us up.
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can’t they just group together separately? So headquarters in one group and pee ons are in their own group?
 
JeffGu said:
Yeah, I've got one of those I tried... they work, but I didn't much care for the sound of them. It's pretty muffled sounding. Depends on your voice, though... had the wife try it and it wasn't bad at all.

They get better all the time, so that's certainly a good option. I don't like VOX at all, and don't use it on any of my ham radios, either... but I can always free up one hand when I need to, so manually keying the radio is easy. It has a TX-RX switch mounted about a foot down the cable to the radio, so it's real easy to just reach up and key it when I want to talk.

Of course, for me, the speaker-mic does all this for a LOT less money, and they're not as fragile.
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We can only legally use FRS radios here unless our company applies for a commercial freq use license. At least that’s what I’ve been told? I have my ham radios, as you know, in my truck and I use them ( illegally) on logging, mining and drilling roads as I see fit, but I’m not sure how to approach that commercial radio shit?
 
We use mostly GMRS on the job... license is about $85 for five years. Along the Canada-US border I know there are some areas where US gmrs is allocated for something else up north, so we can't use them right along the border. We also use narrowband MURS on VHF sometimes. I have a Land Mobile allocation... much more expensive. I use that for some telemetry data stuff, right now, from a remote property.

I don't know enough about Canada's equivalent to the FCC to help you, but I would think they have a website with all the info you need.
 
JeffGu said:
We use mostly GMRS on the job... license is about $85 for five years. Along the Canada-US border I know there are some areas where US gmrs is allocated for something else up north, so we can't use them right along the border. We also use narrowband MURS on VHF sometimes. I have a Land Mobile allocation... much more expensive. I use that for some telemetry data stuff, right now, from a remote property.

I don't know enough about Canada's equivalent to the FCC to help you, but I would think they have a website with all the info you need.
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For now the helmets are doing it for us.
 
We are using both the Sena smh10 and the new 30K, been having issues with the 30’s dropping out occasionally and going crackly possibly due to working in the rain a lot lately, they pair up with the 10’s no worries
 
Sounds like the guy I need to hear from! I have two older SENA set ups. I don't think there is a noise reduction mode. Annoying! Do newer models have noise reduction? Compatible? Thx
 
JJM IV said:
Sounds like the guy I need to hear from! I have two older SENA set ups. I don't think there is a noise reduction mode. Annoying! Do newer models have noise reduction? Compatible? Thx
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They have it but I don’t like it, it ends up cancelling to much needed audio And makes it staticky.
 
Scheffa said:
Can’t confirm the maximum amount but we regularly have 4 30k’s and 2 smh10’s all paired together without problems
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Scheffa the 30K's advertised automatic pairing with one another is one of the most interesting features to me. Do they auto pair with the SMH 10 units?

Thanks for sharing your real world experience.



(CanaryBoss you've read the sena advert blurb right? 30K's are supposed to auto pair with "limitless" or up to 16 in private mode.)

https://www.sena.com/product/30k/
 
It’s hard to explain, if the 10’s are paired with the 30’s onsite then another 30 arrives that has been previously paired they will pair in together.
I’m still trying to get my head around it all properly
 
We're running 10s now, that were set up by treestuff, and I'm wanting to switch over to 20s so we can get all 6 of us on. My question, is there anyone running the 20s?...and if so, how did you install them? It looks like an extension has been added to the 10s on the boom mic wire and I'm curious if that's universal to the 10s, 20s and 30s....
 
The 30s fit the 10s but not tightly. The pins are the same but not the plastic. Easy to get water in there and screw em up. Another issue with the 30s is the speaker wires are soooooo short. But I do like that they plug in whereas the 10s are a solid wire.
 
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