Randy
Well-known member
I bought a Motocomm AB-1M used from the classifieds. Was less than $150, so, I thought I would give it a shot. The box showed up as promised and, after looking through the instructions, I quickly realized that I needed to r.u.t.f.m (rip up the fookin manual). I ripped my Arai Quantum/f apart and installed the speakers behind the cheek pads and mounted the microphone in the open spot in front of my mouth. It comes with velcro for the microphone, but, since I knew I wouldn't get lucky with the first placement, I put a velcro strip in from top to bottom to try different placements for best use.
There are gobs of wires hanging off of this and, if you aren't using them, too bad - they don't come off unless you want to permanently cut them off.
I put the helmet on and tried everything out and quickly realized that I was going to have to change the location of the speakers. So, I pulled the cover off of the cheekpads and found a perfect spot to mount the speakers. Problem 1 solved. I hooked up the cell phone and made some calls to find the best placement of the mic. I couldn't find a good spot, so, I settled for the best spot I could find. Then it was time to deal with the excess wire from the speakers-mike. The clip they give you is a large clip-type binder like you get at staples to hold a stack of paper together - very cheezy. https://www.staples.com/sbd/img/cat/std/s0020283_std.jpg
OK - everything functions from my dining room, lets see how it works on the road.
Turned the radio on, searched for a station, and got some sound. Having the built in FM radio is nice, but, no indicator to see what channel you're listening to and you can only 'seek up'. When you get to the top (or when you think you got to the top), hit the 'reset' button and it goes back to 87.7 and you gotta seek again. When you turn it off and then back on, it doesn't save the station you were on, so, you gotta seek again. That got old pretty quick, so, I plugged in the IPod. It would have been nice if one of the 3 hardcoded inputs was for an MP3 player - the 3 hardcoded input lines are for a cell phone, radar detector, and 2-way radio. So, now I have 4 wires hanging out of this thing, plus, the unused passenger intercom wire and the passenger push-to-talk wire, and my input-to-the-helmet wire and my unused push-to-talk wire. Yep - 8 wires and I only needed 3 - if not for the IPod and phone, I only needed 1.
Ok, enough about the mess of wires, how does it work at speed.
It has its own built in priority - music always on then phone and intercom. If you want to use the cell phone or intercom, you have to turn the VOX switch on and pick the best of the 3 settings. What it does, when you have the switch turned on, the music plays until the phone rings or the passenger talks. The music mutes and the speakers/mic are in VOX mode. However, if you have it too sensitive, the music is always muted cause the least little bit of sound triggers the VOX. Even on the smooth running FJR with the oversized windshield in the full-up position, I had to put it on the least sensitive setting. To make it work decent and not cut out due to normal road noise, I had to tuck in behind the fully upright windshield. I haven't tried it with the wife yet to test out the intercom, but, I don't have high expectations.
After spending 40+ hours with it on my SS1000 weekend, I fiddled around with it enough to where it was tolerable, but, it's a good bet that just about every device out there is probably better than this one.
It was adequate and better than nothing. I was able to listen to music and make phone calls when I wanted, but, not without a little bit of hassle.
I guess you get what you pay for.
There are gobs of wires hanging off of this and, if you aren't using them, too bad - they don't come off unless you want to permanently cut them off.
I put the helmet on and tried everything out and quickly realized that I was going to have to change the location of the speakers. So, I pulled the cover off of the cheekpads and found a perfect spot to mount the speakers. Problem 1 solved. I hooked up the cell phone and made some calls to find the best placement of the mic. I couldn't find a good spot, so, I settled for the best spot I could find. Then it was time to deal with the excess wire from the speakers-mike. The clip they give you is a large clip-type binder like you get at staples to hold a stack of paper together - very cheezy. https://www.staples.com/sbd/img/cat/std/s0020283_std.jpg
OK - everything functions from my dining room, lets see how it works on the road.
Turned the radio on, searched for a station, and got some sound. Having the built in FM radio is nice, but, no indicator to see what channel you're listening to and you can only 'seek up'. When you get to the top (or when you think you got to the top), hit the 'reset' button and it goes back to 87.7 and you gotta seek again. When you turn it off and then back on, it doesn't save the station you were on, so, you gotta seek again. That got old pretty quick, so, I plugged in the IPod. It would have been nice if one of the 3 hardcoded inputs was for an MP3 player - the 3 hardcoded input lines are for a cell phone, radar detector, and 2-way radio. So, now I have 4 wires hanging out of this thing, plus, the unused passenger intercom wire and the passenger push-to-talk wire, and my input-to-the-helmet wire and my unused push-to-talk wire. Yep - 8 wires and I only needed 3 - if not for the IPod and phone, I only needed 1.
Ok, enough about the mess of wires, how does it work at speed.
It has its own built in priority - music always on then phone and intercom. If you want to use the cell phone or intercom, you have to turn the VOX switch on and pick the best of the 3 settings. What it does, when you have the switch turned on, the music plays until the phone rings or the passenger talks. The music mutes and the speakers/mic are in VOX mode. However, if you have it too sensitive, the music is always muted cause the least little bit of sound triggers the VOX. Even on the smooth running FJR with the oversized windshield in the full-up position, I had to put it on the least sensitive setting. To make it work decent and not cut out due to normal road noise, I had to tuck in behind the fully upright windshield. I haven't tried it with the wife yet to test out the intercom, but, I don't have high expectations.
After spending 40+ hours with it on my SS1000 weekend, I fiddled around with it enough to where it was tolerable, but, it's a good bet that just about every device out there is probably better than this one.
It was adequate and better than nothing. I was able to listen to music and make phone calls when I wanted, but, not without a little bit of hassle.
I guess you get what you pay for.
Last edited by a moderator:
