Rugged Race Radios – Intercomm and Radio – Another in the Borneo Series

Shannon Bushman | November 24, 2009 | 0 Comments

One of the main reason I enjoy UTVs is being able to have a conversation with your riding partner. Well at least it was a good theory. In reality it’s usually more like a screaming match punctuated by a lot of “Whats?” and “Uh huhs” as in “I didn’t hear a word you said but I’ll at least acknowledge you said something”. Hmm I wonder if we know anyone who can fix this.

A funny thing happened on the way to Borneo. We found out we needed a 2 meter radio, no exceptions thank you. This made us realize we had a couple of problems to solve. Obviously the radio but I also didn’t want to spend three weeks going horse while yelling at my co-driver. Obviously an intercomm is also needed.

Enter Rugged Race Radios. The new RRP600 Intercom with Digital Speech Processing (DSP) eliminates 80% of the background noise of wind, suspension and motor noise that makes a civil conversation nearly impossible at any speed over 10 mph.

RRP600 DSP Intercomm features:
•    2 to 4 place with the ability to expand up to 8 places
•    DSP background noise canceling technology
•    Aluminum extrusion housing for total circuit shielding
•    Total control VOX for clear communications in loud environments
•    Music In with auto muting and weather proof cover
•    Detachable rear music/cell/audio port connection
•    Exclusive housing with adjustable depth and angle mounting
•    15 stage total mic gain control settings
•    High out amplifier for outstanding music listening
•    Isolated grounds for eliminating ground loop issues
•    Optional panel mount face plates available pn# FP-600

The RRP600 makes having a conversation with your co-driver actually possible at any speed and integrates seamlessly with your radio system. The system is voice (VOX) activated making for a much more natural conversation than button operated intercoms. The VOX sensitivity is adjustable to match our riding style and machine. Your MP3 player plugs in directly with a supplied 3.5mm connector just like a pair of earphones. The intercomm is smart enough to override the music when you are talking and return to it when you stop. It can even work similarly with your cell phone and it comes with parts to adapt to just about any cell phone. You can use it with either traditional ear-muff style headsets or helmet kits. We opted for the in helmet setup. RRR has two styles of helmet kits. The one we chose has an optional 3.5mm output connector. This is used to run the audio into in ear earphones. I already had some custom fitted earphones that do a remarkable job of cutting the wind whistling through my head as well as making the sound a bit clearer than the helmet mounted speakers.
RRR has optional custom fitted earphones. A small remote mounting controller allows you to mount the main unit and all the associated wires in a location more convenient to dealing with them and a single wire goes to the small remote control head unit. We found this a huge benefit when installing on the expedition RZR.

For our 2 meter radio requirements we got the Vertex VX2200 50 watt VHF radio. This is truly a rugged radio well proven and will deliver many years of great service and its pretty much the standard for offroad racing. Some of you may be wondering what is the difference between Amateur HAM radios and commercial radios like the the VX2200. Primarily the circuitry in the commercial radios is designed to work better in a crowded radio spectrum. You don’t have one channel interfering with another simply because of proximity to the broadcaster. In short this means in crowded places like Glamis or at a race where a lot of radios are in use commercial radios like the VX200 will work much better, broadcast more cleanly and receive a clearer signal which means your whole radio experience will be much more enjoyable. The downside is that you generally need to program the channels you will be use in advance using a computer. Since Rugged Race Radios does this for you in advance it’s not much of an issue unless you have a club channel you need to use. All you need is a cable that plugs into the USB on your computer and into the hand mic port on the radio. We mounted push to talk buttons within east reach of the driver and co-driver to activate the radio.

The VX-2200 Vertex mobile radios are the compact tough race radio. Feature packed and ready to win!
•    Powerful 50 watt VHF 134-174 MHZ
•    8 Character alpha tag display
•    CCTSS/DSC privaticy codes
•    Remote PTT for intercoms
•    128 programmable channels
•    8 programmable channel groups
•    3 Year Factory Warranty

Check out these videos demonstrating how the RRP600 DSP works in a particularly noisy Rhino.
One ride with this setup and you’ll wonder why you waited so long to install one.

Without DSP – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfGcN89-d70
With DSP – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Pj2RENaZCk&feature=channel