darylhunter

Depends on what you're trying to do. If you're in to ham radio as a hobby, then a dual-band or tri-band radio will probably be desirable. I have a dual-band Kenwood in my truck, and all my HTs are tri-band Yeasus for example. However, for dirt biking comms I happen to have an old 40 W Yeasu VHF only radio lying around that I'm going to toss into the motorhome for this winter season. Most of the time when we're out dirt biking, I have my HT watching a VHF frequency anyway, so the single band radio in the RV will be all my wife needs to call us in for lunch or whatever (if she ever gets her license ). I keep saying one of these days I'm going to put in a nice all mode HF mobile radio and a multi-band VHF/UHF radio too, but just haven't yet found a mobile HF radio that I really like. That and I've been too lazy to deal with running the coax and power cables through the RV.

The repeater info for GMRS is good to know. Because I do a lot of work with the FCC, I did get a GMRS license just to be fully legal when I had a set of the FRS/GMRS radios for my wife and kids to use. Eventually let the license go as the radios all finally died. Even though I tried to find good quality radios, I was never happy with the audio quality of them and was perversely happy when they finally croaked so I could throw them away. My ham gear's audio quality is so much better! The girls are 12 and 14, and they could each pass the ham test with just a week's worth of easy study - finding the time is the only hard part. I have an Extra class license and have been licensed since 1981, but not as active as I was when I lived back East. With a 5 minute commute to work I just don't have time to get on the air anymore, and too many other distractions at home . . .

I've gone the speaker mic route for a while now, but recently purchased a bag full of Sena headsets so I can communicate with my kids and wife while dirt biking. Have plans to add the SR10 into the mix so I can use my ham gear to extend range. Does anyone here have experience with the SR10 yet? Next step is to get my girls licensed . . .

Just replaced the chain on my 2015 500 EXC with a new DID chain. It only came with a rivet type master link. Fine with me as I had rivet tools available from my road racing days. But in the past, with clip type master links, I've used the afore mentioned safety wire backup method.

If riding with a few different groups in the area, each with radios, having a few of the different simplex frequencies preprogrammed will let you switch to a new simplex frequency without worrying about accidentally tuning to a repeater input frequency and causing interference. Here's a link to a page that shows a block of the various simplex frequencies for the various ham bands. http://wackradio.com/ham/index.htm One other thing that I sometimes do is to program a CTCSS tone squelch frequency on the radios in my group. Helps keep the radio a bit quieter by not breaking the squelch unless the received signal has the right CTCSS tone. See: http://www7.taosnet.com/ebear/pltones.html On a related note, has anyone here used a Sena SR10 to interface with a PTT on a 2-way radio?

Glad to hear you guys were able to pull something together. I would have liked to have gotten out, but am still jet lagged from my return trip - couldn't even last through Malaysian F1 race I had DVR'd. Should be back in form by next weekend.

Will be flying home from Geneva Saturday arriving late. Would love to get out, but I'll probably be a bit too knackered to make it out for a ride. But looking forward to getting out and exercising the big bike.

Sounds interesting. I would like to add another 1190 R to the ride. But, I've got a work project that may keep me from taking that much time off. Might be able to do the first few days though.

I'm out, work travel has me away again

I'm kind of thinking I need a 690 R, and a 300 EXC. That way I'll have a good shot of having the right bike for each ride. 300 Gas Gas trials bike, 300 EXC, 500 EXC, 690 R, and 1190 R. Maybe I could just make a trailer and pull the 300 EXC behind the 1190 R . . . would be cheeper than two extra bikes ;-)

During the last power outage, I used my EU2000i. Bought that for my tire warmers back when I was racing, but it's been handy for lots of other uses. Just make sure to run it every now and again to keep from getting the carb clogged up. As mentioned above, the cheap open frame home depot or harbor freight class generators are loud. Won't make friends if you use one of them for camping. Always hated to be pitted next to someone with a loud generator. I ran two refrigerators plus my home cable modem/wifi routers and a computer with the EU2000. Worked fine. If not plugging in individual equipment to the generator, do be careful about connecting a generator to feed your house. You need to make sure you are disconnected from the main feed back out to the power company - other wise you risk injury to a power worker. And of course your gen set will be trying to power the whole neighborhood otherwise ;-) During that last big outage, I did have my solar system installed. However that uses grid tie inverters, so if the power from SDG&E goes away, so does my solar. In addition to my EU2000, I also have an EU7000. Thought that it might be interesting get a power manager like I have on my motorhome so that I could easily connect either of the generators to the house, which would hopefully allow the solar to run. The concern would be what happens when I'm producing more solar that the house needs and they try to feed it back to the generator set.

Nice

I almost got out of my Geneva trip, but it's still on. Confirmed I'm flying home on the 8th so will miss you guys. Have fun!

Actually, Survivor Man and Bear Grylls both demonstrated that condoms can be used to hold quite a bit of water. Thus, they make a useful backup compact canteen that can be easily tucked into any unused space in your gear. At least that's what you can tell your SO if they find them in your pack . . . ;-)

I bought an Arai trails helmet since their other street and dirt helmets fit me well. Surprising how much lighter they are than even the regular dirt helmet. Still haven't bought proper boots because I really want to try them on first.

I'm a newcomer, only started in '96

Not new news. It's been a recurring story for a long time. I've attached a newspaper clipping from around 2001 or 2002. I'm in the middle of the frame eating a cookie. I used to ride up there a lot, every Sunday for a number of years, but switched to mostly dirt riding after I had kids, and following a couple of close calls where other riders blew the double yellow and came at me head on. Was a lot of fun though. Mike Baker, Pat Garrison, and I started the Palomar Mountain Mafia kind of as a joke after one old lady drove up to Mothers and asked if we were all part of a gang. So we thought it would be kind of fun to start something. We designed a fender sticker that you can still find up there today. Mike passed away at Willow Springs in August of 2000, Pat moved away a few years later, and I don't ride up there anymore, but Ivan, one of the guys who used to ride with us, is keeping the tradition alive and is still handing out the fender stickers. For fun I included a shot of me back in the day taken by Dan Bussey

Will do, Heading Europe Sunday through Thursday. Might be able to get out the weekend of the 17/18 or 24/25. Heading back to Europe the 26th for two weeks.

Welcome! I'm in San Marcos as well. Have a trials bike, 500 EXC, and KTM 1190 R, so something for every occasion. Only problem is finding time to ride ;-) We should hook up for coffee some time.

Would be nice if they would make available a GIS file for the project, including a grading layer for the service roads, etc. That way we could plot the affected areas on one of the various GIS programs like ArcGIS or MapInfo.

I've hear stories of other dirt options besides Nate Harrison, but every time I've taken a peek at them the gates have been closed. Nate's is usually in pretty good shape except for a few pot holes. Like Mimi, I've taken a street bike on it before - my '96 GSXR 750. Was down it a few weeks ago on the 1990 R and it was in good repair.

Double checked my schedule and it looks like I'll be flying home from Europe on either Oct 7 or 8 depending upon whether I have to stay an extra day. So looks unlikely for me that weekend. Flying on a different international trip this weekend, so the 9/9 date won't work for me either. But so far the other weekends in October are open.

I loaded the gpx file into my Garmin Montana this weekend and set out to ride part of the trail Monday. This was the first time loading a route file to the Montana and I must have screwed something up. I was able to follow the Mesa Grade to the turn off point off of the 79, but then the GPS told me that I had arrived and provided no additional routing info. I looked a bit when I got home and I think the GPS or Base Camp may have broken the route up into a whole bunch of smaller route segments and I had only activated the first segment. I'll play with it some more later and try to create a track file which I'm a bit more familiar with. In any case, made it to the Indian Flats camp ground and did a quick loop around that. May come back there with my girls and camp some time in the jeep just for fun. Following that I continued on the dirt trail for about 10 miles or so then turned around and headed for home. I had to be back home by noon to 1 PM so really just wanted a taste of the trail. Pretty easy dirt road that presented no challenges for me on the 1190 R. If the rest of the trail is like that all the way to Big Bear then it's definitely big bike friendly. I might truck the 500 EXC up there some weekend and pre run more of the trail as I could do that at double the pace of my 1190 pretty easily. Not that the 1190 can't go faster, just that I'm pretty comfortable sliding the 500 around - and if I fall over, no big deal. Haven't tipped over the 1190 yet and not looking forward to the first time that I have to pick it up by myself Also had two bonus trips up/down Palomar on the way out and the way back. The knobbies have surprisingly good grip, but I'm still not sure how far I can lean over before I start dragging the side cases.

I downloaded the file and opened in basecamp, then saved to kml format. Hopefully I've uploaded the file here correctly mesa__grande_to_big_bear.kml

10/7 as in Oct 7? Would this be a big bike ride as in the picture? I don't have travel booked that weekend, so maybe there's hope for me