Last updated: February 9, 2014 at 12:47 pm
Introduction
I’m relatively new to Adventure riding, but I’ve quickly discovered how important it is to be able to communicate with your fellow riders while on a ride, and how much more fun it is to be able to communicate with these riders and friends. So, if it’s both fun and important, then it makes a great deal of sense to be able to do it easily and well. I’ve found out that once the Comm’s gear is setup, and connected, it operates pretty well, but getting all of the communications equipment configured is no easy task, especially because the folks that you ride with, and that attend each ride will vary. Add to that the fact that not everyone has a Scala G9, and you’ve got a number of issues to overcome. So, in this post, I set out to try to solve them…
What equipment are we going to use
I’m using the Scala Rider G9, from Cardo systems. The unit allows communication with up to 8 other riders (using Radio Frequency), and also allows for blue-tooth connections to numerous other devices. In my case, I connect it to my Zumo 660 Navigation System, and also to my iPhone 5S. The connections, functions, and flow of audio is shown in the image below.
How do you connect Scala G9 to Zumo and iPhone?
How do you connect the riders together for Intercom
Let me first say that when these communicators are working well, they offer crystal clear communications, the ability to talk over great distances, and market-leading functionality (9 riders at once, wow!). They deserve a lot of credit for producing the product that they produced, but at the same time, it is too hard to take advantage of all of these capabilities.
It seems to me that Scala is trying very hard to make it easy to connect all of their Communication’s products together, paying most of their attention to how you connect multiple units of the same type. And, while they are trying very hard, it’s my opinion that they’ve done a mediocre job. You see, the problem with their solution lies in two areas. First of all, their manual is not organized around the things that we want to do (configuring/pairing the systems, using systems that have been configured/paired, knowing if the systems are ready to use), and the order in which we would like to do them. Secondly, the manual does not provide clear instructions for doing any of these things. So I’ve attempted to rewrite the important sections, and put them in this document (ScalaG9_Configuration_and_Setup_Instructions.pdf).
With that said, I’ll talk about the issues, and then let you download and examine the document to see if it helps you with the objectives mentioned above.
List of important sites for the Scala Rider G9
- Modify the Scala Rider G9 to use earbuds
- Utilizing the Scala Rider G9 Microphone Boom (Updated video)
- Motorcycle Intercom (Scala Rider G9 & Shuberth C2)
- Complete list of all of Jim Moore’s videos on YouTube
