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 My wife and I recently returned from a 10,500 km journey around Western Europe on our Honda Africa Twin. We were fortunate enough to have been evaluating two electronic systems that we were pleased to discover made our trip immeasurably more enjoyable. While not everyone's cup of tea, it's my opinion that the vast majority of us would love to harness he power of these two great devices, the Autocom Pro 7 intercom and Destinator GPS (Global Positioning System) software running on a Pocket PC handheld computer.
Prior to setting out on this trip I had been using this system in my car for about 6 months, so I realised that the system would be extremely valuable when trying to navigate through foreign countries and major cities. We all know, it isn't so much fun trying to navigate by maps in strange cities, especially while riding a motorbike. The problem was that the version of Destinator I had only covered Australia, and I was going to the UK, Germany, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Italy and the USA! I spoke to my contact at Destinator and mentioned that I'd like to review how effective the system is on the motorcycle, and she made available to me Map Data for all the countries which I was going to visit. As I began to think how it might all function while on the bike, I wondered how I might best get the audio prompts, which are one of the best parts of Destinator, into my helmet. It didn’t take long before I realised that the Autocom intercom would patch the audio from the Pocket PC straight into my helmet via a standard 3.2mm stereo plug lead. Some discussions with the Autocom soon secured me a unit that had the added benefit of enabling me to talk with my wife while riding, listen to MP3s from the Pocket PC and talk on the phone, all while riding! What a pleasant surprise the Autocom Unit was. How it all works. The Destinator program takes this positional data and locates you graphically on a map that you can see just like an ordinary paper map with a "You are here" dot that moves as you do. That is where the similarities to a normal paper based map end, for the maps in Destinator have thousands of valuable bits and pieces of data such as all streets and their names, post offices, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, bike dealers, ferry terminals, and so on. Just about any type of building or service can be located, and of course the software will guide you to any address or point of interest with voice prompts and visual guides.
The Autocom unit itself just needed to be hooked into the bikes power supply, and slipped under the seat. The Africa Twin has a storage bin under the seat so this part of the Autocom setup was a snack. Sockets to plug the helmets into when on the bike are then to be mounted on the bike in suitable places. I mounted mine under my tank bag tank cover up the front and my wife’s on the rear seat grab bars. These are suitably secured with nylock straps. So within about 1 hour the bike was ready for the trip. We set off from Carshalton in South London on Friday afternoon about 3pm. On Destinator, within three taps on the screen I had loaded our destination, Dover ferry terminal. I soon began to notice that not having to worry about where I was going freed up my mind to concentrate more on riding and enjoying the scenery. The burden of navigating in a continually foreign environment was lifted from me, and I was later to realise that this is the only way to go on a long motorbike tour. A good example of how handy the system is was when we met up with a mob of fellow riders on the EuroTunnel train under the channel, and then ended up leading them to their destination in Belgium at night, after they spent the entire channel crossing admiring the kit. Or the time when we wanted to find and alternative route from France into Switzerland, and Destinator took us there without fuss on beautiful minor scenic roads we would otherwise have never seen. As the days went on my confidence with the system grew to such a point that I knew that no matter what destination I put in I would be guided there by either the quickest or shortest (your choice) route possible. Not once in 10,5000 km did I need a paper map. Not once did I get lost. The system is totally unbelievable. From a safety viewpoint too, the on bike GPS mapping has many strong points. Using the Autocom system meant that I never had to look at the map – other than to get an occasional overview of where I was. Having the Destinator system mounted on the bars meant even when I did look at it, my eyes barely dropped from looking at the road ahead. Not having to remember strange street names and complicated directions meant I wasn’t distracted from riding and avoiding crazy European (read Roman) drivers. Seeing a 3D view of the road meant I could literally “see” the road ahead around blind corners! (see pic. right) Being told automatically when I was speeding also meant that I didn’t get booked once (something I am told you don’t want to have happen to you in Switzerland), and If I needed the nearest hospital – Destinator would have guided me right to it’s door.
That last point demonstrates the power of the “points of interest” feature. This allows you to view a list of camp grounds, train stations, restaurants, motor dealers, service stations, hospitals, cinemas, tourist attractions and so on. Amazingly, you can rock up into a strange town, select “camp grounds” and be guided to the nearest one. Great for when you’ve had a long day in the saddle. I used it for this all the time, as I did for finding tourist attractions, such as when in Rome (a huge sprawling metropolis) and finding ferry ports. Summary Autocom Rider to Pillion Intercom - Destinator GPS Software - Notes: Michael Richards - Web site Administrator. |
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In a nutshell, you connect the GPS to the Pocket PC and both the GPS and Pocket PC to the bikes power supply. GPS OZ supplied me with a cable that did the trick, but you can also get a suitable lead and GPS receiver bundled with Destinator. The GPSOZ lead not only powered both devices but also linked the two (via a serial connection) so that the Pocket PC could receive the signals from the GPS. The GPS receiver, which in my case was the GARMIN Etrex, calculates your position on the earth’s surface accurately to with 5 metres using sophisticated satellite technology developed by the US military and that’s now free for everyone to use. The GPS unit spits this positional data out a few times per second to anything that’s listening, in this case any Pocket PC device running the Destinator Software. 
We shipped the bike to London from Sydney, ($500 approx) and it was waiting for us at Tillbury docks on our arrival in London 6 weeks later. After unpacking the bike and clearing it through customs it was quickly back to where we were staying and time to setup the navigation system. I mounted the Pocket PC by modifying a Garmin Etrex handlebar mount and using 3M VHB tape to attach it to the Pocket PC. Using this method made mounting the Ipaq and GPS a piece of cake and the mount allowed for quick removal of both devices which is of course important when one wants to leave the bike unattended. The installation of both devices took about 15 minutes, so it was then onto installing the Autocom. This was also straight forward, but fitting the speakers and microphone inside the helmet took some time, time that is a good investment because when the equipment is mounted well inside the helmet, you can not tell it is there at all. 