Which radio/cassette, mob phone or camera?
 

I'm flying my bike and me out to the US in May and am thinking about the following I may want for the trip -
(i) I have a Sony Discman for CDs, but am thinking of getting a Sony Walkman radio/casette to link into the bike's intercom. I want one which is easy for the longsighted to use (big buttons and dials) and perhaps with a search facility to search for approaching radio stations. It would also need to be usuable back home in the UK. Any ideas? Presumably cheaper in the US?
(ii) Mobile phone - cheaper, I know, in the US but what's a good one? Capable of phoning from US to UK, and usable back here.
(iii) Camera - Although I'm delighted with the quality of pictures from my Canon EOS100, it is a little bulky to take abroad on the bike. So I'm interested in a compact camera with auto focus, and with sharp pictures, zoom or fixed lens? Less than £100?
Any advice would be gratefully received, thanks.

Buy electronics in the US, definitely cheaper than the UK.

Re a phone, same goes, get it in the US, any phone store should be able to sort you out in a few minutes with one that will do for both standards - "dual-band". Just pick your price point and plan and away you go. Note that there is a very limited selection on dual-band phones.

Re Camera, have a look in the Photo forum for ideas, it's been well-discussed there. Personally I don't htink an EOS100 is too big, don't forget you will get better pics with it and with a good 28-20 lens or similar will get a much wider variety of photos than any compact. And, you already own it.

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Grant Johnson

Share the Dream!
at: www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

If you are want to use a gms in different countries find out wich bandwith the gsm-networks use in those countries. You have dual and triband. Duals band will cover all of Europe, USA is only triband.
Models that have only tri or dual band are cheaper. If you need a model that covers both you'll pay more.
I have a Siemens S35, really happy with it.
If you want a really sturdy one go check the big Ericsson models. They have one that is supposed to be inbreakeble. We had one at work, I drove over it with the van, only the screen had a crack but it still worked... They said it shouldn't have cracked so they gave a new one for free!

Why get a casette player these days? I would recommmend a cd-walk man (with shock absorber) or even better a MP3 player.

Thanks very much to both of you for your helpful advice. Certainly using my SLR sounds good. As for the radio/cassette, it was really to use the 'radio' side of it for weather warnings, road ahead blocked, and so on...but point taken. Anyway, would my passenger tolerate six weeks of Fairport Convention, the Eagles, Dire Straits, ohhhhh on CDs?

You're telling us your scintillating conversational skills won't cut it? http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/wink.gif

FWIW, we don't use music because in order to hear it cleanly the volume has to be too loud - very bad for the ears. Your bike may be different, but take note of the volume setting - set it for a comfortable volume when off the bike, (not Saturday night party volume!) and if you have to turn it up much when riding then your ears are in for a hard time.

Ear plugs are highly recommended just because of too much road and wind noise already, without trying to hear music over it all. You can get ear plugs with speakers for intercoms and music - if you really want music I'd recommend checking this route out.

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Grant Johnson

Share the Dream!
at: www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

Re: music equipment... I confirm what Grant said about wearing headphones while riding a bike. I tried it only once: it was awful. The volume must be very loud to cover the wind noise.

The ideal gear for a long trip is an iPod MP3 player, a pair of flat speakers from Sonic Impact (http://www.si-5.com/) and a small AM/FM/short-wave radio. If you've got the money (and a Mac at home to download music to the iPod), it allows you to pack 100 CDs in your pocket and listen to local FM stations and the BBC worlwide service.

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Pierre
http://www.geocities.com/skypie999/bikes/

As far as music is concerned. I would get a set of custom ear molds with speakers in them. http://www.earplugco.com You get the benefit of noise reduction and music without having to blast your ear drums. Hook them up to whatever you want as a source. I use an MP3 player but if you want weather info you might want to consider just a simple weather radio.

The phone. I think Verizon or Voicestream have agreements with UK providers and the phone you already have might work. Voicestream uses GSM in the US but it is not as good as AT&T for coverage IMHO.

If you don't want to carry your nice Canon, I recommend one of the little Olympus point and shoot with zoom. They are compact and I think they have a water resistant one that is great for a bike. I've gone digital and use a simple Kodak DC240 that uses AA's. No film to carry and I get to see my shots right away. I can upload to a web site or put them on a CD so they don't disappear.

Hope this helps.



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Safe Travels

Jay Kaminsky
Happily Homeless
http://jkam.home.att.net