Originally Posted by
Steve Katzman
Why do you feel the need to go wireless? My wife and I have gone the wired route and have had few problems. The only problem we have had is that the wires do eventually give up after a year or two of constant flexing, but the wireless units still need wires for the headset. The advantages of wired are many: Months of riding on a single battery charge; one small lightweight unit; less chance of picking up extraneous signals (noise); less expensive. We have friends that tried the wireless units and did not like the short battery life or the size and weight of the units. I guess the newer units are smaller and lighter. We started with the tandem talk, but upgraded to the (wired) tandem com which is smaller and techically superior in several ways. We have been using the tandem com for about 5 years with good results. YMMV.
From the captain's perspective, for us there was really no driving reason, although I admit we did have several cases where she wouldn't get us unplugged before one or both of us dismounted. But....everything was behind me. The unit was in my jersey pocket and the headset wire ran up my back.
For the stoker, however, her headset wire was dangling in front of her the entire time. Not a real big deal, but something that was there. When we decided to get a new one, there was no doubt it had to be the wireless model from her perspective.