Quote:
Originally posted by nostatic
Tom, thanks for the thoughts. He liked the stopwatch idea, so we're going to pick one up. And what boy doesn't like a radio? Not sure that is in the budget though...maybe next season.
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OK, here is the cheapass-cool-guy-race-car-crew-chief radio setup.
Stage 1: Buy these radios ($70):
http://www.sportsmansguide.com/cb/cb.asp?a=201680
They are 5 Watts (the highest I have seen for this cheap), with a theoretical 14 mile range over open ground. More importantly, they
come with earbud/boom-mics . They are not the most comfortable thing but they will fit under a helmet Once you are on track, you will barely notice them. The big down side it the push-to-talk button is on the headset cord, which is a PITA to find while on track, and even harder to activate with gloves on. I tried it once with a piece of plastic super-glued to the button to make it easier to find, but it still sucked. Most of the talking is from crew to driver, so this probably isn't a big deal. Have the boy wear his under a pair of shooters-type earmuffs
like this , they keep the earpiece in his ear, and hold the mic pointed at his mouth. They also let you hear radio calls over loud cars zooming by.
Stage 2 upgrade. ($60)
https://www.rflimited.com/ShowProduct.asp?productID=8&NodeID=c2
This is a helmet kit designed for motorcyclists to talk to each other over FRS radios. It comes with 2 small speakers and a mic that stick inside your helmet (The one I linked is for full face helmets, if you wear an open face, you need
this model. It has a long cord with a push-to-talk switch you can mount wherever you want.
There you go, complete helmet to crew radio setup for the princely sum of $130, plus shipping, and maybe another ~$15 for some earmuffs if you don't already have a pair.
No, it isn'at as good as a Sampson racing radios setup, but it is a fraction of the price, and for a club racer or DE guy, it works pretty well.
Hint: We had some reception problems, which we solved by adding an external antenna to the Midland radio. The external antenna consisted of gently cutting the of tip plastic cover over the antenna to expose the copper antenna wire, and adding a length of wire connected to the radio antenna by an aligator clip. We ran the wire up the cage and through a small hole in the roof, to get it outside the car body. You could do the same thing by sticking the wire out the top of the passenger door and closing it, or even with a piece of good-old blue painter's tape. A friend I race with used the same setup in a different car, with no problems even without the external antenna.
Tom