Here are features to look for as you are shopping for an intercom to use with your motorcycle helmet:

• If you may be riding in the rain, get a system that says it’s waterproof and not just water resistant. Some riders will put a water resistant system in a plastic baggie and that works for them.
• You can get systems that have a headset speaker for one ear or both ears. Installation and moving the intercom to another helmet is easier for systems with only one ear, but some people want to hear sound in both ears.
• Most systems have voice activation of some kind to keep the headset quiet when no talking is occurring. This voice activation often has the ability to be disabled and a push-to-talk switch used instead.
• Many intercoms have noise reduction capabilities with digital signal processing to help reduce the noise they pick up from the microphone. The faster you drive, or the windier it is, the more important this feature is.
• If you want music, look for a system that has a built-in FM stereo radio tuner or an auxiliary stereo input for a Walkman, MP3, iPod, or satellite radio unit. You can also use this input to receive driving directions from a voice prompted GPS unit.
• Some systems mount on your helmet, while others have capability to mount on your belt clip or bike. If the system is big and bulky, you may want the ability to mount it on your bike.
• You can integrate some intercoms with cell phones so you can talk while you ride. They require special cables or you can get motorcycle intercoms that have Bluetooth capability so they connect to your Bluetooth-enabled phone wirelessly.

Once you find the right motorcycle intercom for you, it will really make your ride with other people much more enjoyable. You’ll wonder how you got along without it. You typically get what you pay for when you buy motorcycle intercoms, but even a bad motorcycle intercom is better than none at all.