Roadster Headgear
(NOTE: If you NEVER use a cell phone in a car, you can skip this
post...you won't like it.)
It's too cold to even think of starting the MG: highs have been in
the teens here in Indianapolis, and I've had a bad cold to boot. So
my weekend plans came to naught: I sat inside, sneezed and sniffled
rather than being out for a bracing drive in sub-freezing
temperatures.
So this week's entry deals with something I researched several
months ago: what headgear works in a small, loud, British roadster? I
don't mean hats or berets, but what kind of hands-free phone headgear
can you actually use while trying to wrestle your car through traffic
on I-95?
Now, I've ALWAYS hated holding a phone to my head. I've been using
a headset of some sort at work or at home since the early 1980s, long
before it was "bling" and a fashion statement. My ham radio
headset was an old Telex unit patched into my Heathkit, and even in
the car or RV I used speakers and a PTT button on the wheel or turn
indicator for CB or mobile ham commo. My first cell phone was an old
3 watt Motorola bag phone, equipped with a speaker jack and a remote
mike, so even this was patched into the inside wires to afford a
hands-free environment.
So when modern cell phones came along, I of course upgraded my
hands free units along the way. Wired headsets from Plantronics and
Panasonic were my first choices, and they work fine in quite
environments or in a nice Cadillac sedan. However, when it comes to
driving the MG, you're in a whole different realm of noise.
Noise in roadster comes from three sources:
Mechanical noise - the engine, exhaust, gears and tires - is the
major noise source at under 30 MPH. The good news is that it is
usually low-frequency with some higher frequency overtones - exhaust
noise, engine noise and gear/tire whine. You listen to this for
warnings of potential problems.
Aerodynamic noise generally becomes a nuisance above 30 MPH. At
this point the wind moving over the windscreen, around the pillars
and past your head becomes noticeable. Part of the reason is the air
flow over the vehicle starts to create turbulent vortices that are
pushed down into the cockpit from above and around the sides of the
windscreen. At lower speeds these dissipate above and to the sides of
the vehicle, but at higher speeds they buffet your head and ears -
especially the outside ear, which gets a double-dose from both side
turbulence as well as from above the windscreen. Various wind
deflectors can help with this, but without careful aerodynamic design
(like the newer Audi, Mercedes and BMW convertibles) these only
postpone the turbulence.
Finally there's the noise from "outside": primarily
other vehicles that you're passing, but also reflected noise from
nearby buildings, parked cars - even curbs. Being low to the ground
places your ears in line for noise sources and reflections that are
normally dissipated away from and below larger vehicles. Exhaust
noise - normally projected down and reflected in a broad circle away
from a vehicle becomes a straight-shot when you're only a foot above
someone's tail pipe. Tire noise from other cars is at your ear level
(especially these days with 19" rims on almost EVERYTHING!), and
the turbulence from other vehicles pushes right into you from both
sides. Worst of all: any semi-tractor and trailer (or big RV or bus)
is pushing a hurricane of turbulence to each side, and the wake from
the trailer projects a vortex cone at least 100 meters behind the
vehicle. Right into your head - or so it seems.
OK, well that was a long-winded way of starting this piece. What
it amounts to is that you have different noise rejection requirements
at different speeds and driving conditions - conditions that you do
NOT have in a sedan or large vehicle.
In order to be useful while driving, a telephone headset has to
muffle or cancel the ambient noise from the sources above that
reaches your ear(s), and do the same to separate your voice out of
the noise at the microphone. There are numerous ways of effecting
this filtering, all of which are used in modern portable telephony
equipment. Some work on specific noise components, others are more
general, filtering out or passing ranges of frequencies that are
found in noise or speech.
How most of these filters work is beyond scope here: what follows
are my personal choices for cell phone headsets that work for me in
the MG. I've owned and tried well over 20 different headsets in the
past two years, and I've found the following three that seem to do a
good job - under specific circumstances.
First, I break my driving down into two categories: "neighborhood
cruising" and "over-the-road". They mean pretty much
what they say: driving to dinner or the store and a nice cruise back
home, never going above 45 MPH (well, not hardly!) and driving in
traffic on the freeway for an hour or more.
For "neighborhood cruising" - typically my daily commute
over mixed rural roads and city streets - I've found that a good
noise-canceling headset with good wind resistance works just fine. I
have two that I switch day to day. For "over-the-road"
NOTHING I've found does a superior job; however, I have one headset
that does pretty well up to 55 MPH and fights truck noise and
buffeting very well.
For my day-to-day drive I use:
Plantronics Voyager 510S. This little jewel of a bluetooth headset
is relatively cheap ($50-60), is pretty rugged, has excellent wind
rejection and is plenty loud to hear over most road noise. Yet it's
not totally ear-blocking, so it can be worn in the office or at home
without giving you a "honey-do ear" (turning a deaf ear
toward those "honey-dos"), and is light-weight enough to
become unnoticed. And it stays put without a lot of hassle:
even crawling around under stuff doesn't usually dislodge it -
although your ponytail will tangle in it when you least need it to.
Blue Parrott B150 Roadwarrior. I found this on my way from Dallas
to Jacksonville driving the MG at a truck stop. Normally it sells for
over $100, which kept me from buying one for some time, but you can
find these at trucker centers for under $80. This is a "conventional"
headset design: over the head pressure band, with an ear-covering
speaker on one side and an adjustable flex boom microphone. The boom
mike has a "right" side and a "wrong" side: it
contains two microphones, one that is pointed toward your mouth and a
second on the back side that picks up noise. It electronically
cancels the noise out of the mouth mike and also uses this to cancel
noise in the earpiece. Not as comfortable as the Plantronics, and
plenty "geeky", but it does much better in noisy
environments - like heavy traffic and can take a bit more wind than
the Plantronics. I use this quite a bit these days when I'm outside
in the cold and wind, as it also give a bit of ear coverage as well.
Nextel NASCAR Pit Crew cellular headset. OK, this is TOTAL geek! I
originally got this so I could hear a phone conversation when
surrounded by a crowd of people all talking loudly at the same time.
I think it was at work, although it could have been my wife and her
sister at home...anyway, this is an actual NASCAR pit headset (I
can't remember who actually makes it, but the same unit is available
from the manufacturer as part of a UHF communications set for
racing). It has been modified to work with a standard cell phone -
meaning the PTT is non-operational, but you get full-duplex voice and
can add a second mono input for background listening - like your
NASCAR UHF receiver. It's hard to wear for a fat-head like me, but
the inconvenience is outweighed in "over-the-road" driving,
where the full shell binaural earpieces give excellent protection
from the buffeting that truck wakes and passing vehicles hit you
with. While it provides a considerable amount of attenuation to low
and high frequency noise, it passes enough mid-range to allow good
perception of surrounding sounds. And it keeps your ears warm. I
highly recommend it if you're going to drive on the interstate for
several hours with the top down. Eliminates "road deafness"
and the lingering ringing that too much wind will cause. I was never
hassled by the police in any of the states I went through wearing
this headset, although I think it was the MG that wowed them, not the
headset!
I hope this is helpful to you folks out there. It's a pain to buy "a pig in a poke" when you're looking for things like a headset, since there are so many choices, and none of them are as cheap as a burger and fries. However, when you're trying to drive your little car and you need to talk on the phone - and remember, you should NEVER place a call while driving, and only answer if you feel safe (you don't HAVE to answer, you know!) - these headsets will make your life more comfortable - and a damn sight safer!
Well, that's the post for this week. Hopefully I'll have some "real" MG news to report...if the weather gets a bit better...