I have just read this whole post. Well most of it as I have a '13 Street Glide with the standard radio. So I don't understand the whim, boombox, and all the other HD crap y'all talking about!! I do have the Cardo PackTalk Bold and am pretty happy thus far. I bought the matched set for my buddy and I. I can listen to music on my phone, we can chat back and forth, and we can pick up FM stations. Phone does work but I will not answer or call while riding. All that said, we just had our first major trip since buying these. We have had couple short trips with others, and the only complaint was range to communicate back and forth. But riding by ourselves, we seem to stay close enough comm is not a problem. So bottom line is I'm (well we are) pretty happy with these units. Except I found after our trip that Cardo did eliminate the community site and updates. Once I found this out, I updated so I'm not sure if there would have been any improvements. NOW THAT I'VE BABBLED ON.....
Kudos to Rider and Ken for all the work they have done. I am impressed what these two have gone through and their commitment to making these work. Also I would like to think that Cardo may read this thread for input and take our issues and try to find resolution. At least they are open enough to listen to you guys and do some work with you. I hope this continues and they can find some work arounds for those who need it. And I believe the majority of moco issues have been brought up here. Their dedication to money, their unwillingness to compromise and/or work with existing, proven, and working systems show their arrogance to what the world really wants. Age old technology, no major upgrades or improvements to at least match competition.... and the necessity to spend thousands of $$ to make their product perform and act as it should from the factory. I honestly don't see how they will survive and plan to be around in the next five years.
BUT I DIGRESS...... this is about a couple of guys who have spend a great deal of time trying to find resolutions to a problem. Their work and dedication should not go un-noticed. Thanks guys, Rider & Ken, and whomever else contributes.... I like seeing posts like this. Sorry for my rambling, but ......

 

I am unclear about this.

Are you using the Cigarette Charger or the USB Power and Data cable?

If you are using the Cigarette Charger then the Freewire is automatically powered on and off. As long as the charger is not powered when bike is off then the Freewire will shut down with the bike.
.

 

That is exactly what I did on my 17 SGS. Originally I had wired it to my right rear saddle bag on that bike, and put it on top of the amp I had back there. It was powered by the aux cig lighter port I put in the saddlebag as well. After some time though I was trying to troubleshoot the crackling popcorn noise I would hear, thinking it was ignition wire bleed over into the sierra cable, and decided to move it under the fairing. So I coiled up the sierra harness under the fairing, and had the cigarette lighter adapter under there and I ran both to the left rear part of the batwing fairing. I think put a piece of velcro on the freewire and on the inside of the batwing fairing, and stuck the freewire there. So Ken, that would be my suggestion to you on your install, it is under the batwing fairing but yet I could stick my hand under the bagwing fairing and press the button if I needed to, it's also out of the elements, and out of sight out of mind, so didn't have to worry about someone stealing it, because you couldn't see it.

Since I now have a road glide, I will see to do something similiar with this fairing I just have to examine the fairing and see what I come up with. This is the video I watched to give me that idea on the batwing fairing Ken, and I think you will find that suits your situation as well.
@DWKen

 

Though I don't expect I ever need to hit that sync button again, sometimes resets of the headset might need to happen that leave me wanting to be able to get to it so I mounted my Freewire under the fairing this weekend.

I'm not sure its the place I want it to stay but it is working for now and I thought I would share. What I did was put it under the speaker cover on the left side with the lights facing downward. The two cords for the connection to the Boom Box Comm cable and the Power are both then going up towards the top of the fairing. I fed those from inside the fairing so they come through a little gap there at the top of the speaker. I have added another power port under the fairing that is connected to the same circuit as the one that is outside the fairing. Power is supplied there. I then have my Boom Comm cable coiled up under my Amp and connected to the Freewire DIN connector there. I did this with the intention that if I want, I can just grab the edge of the speaker cover and pull it off and hit the button fairly easily. My speaker grills come on and off pretty often because I'm always playing with something that involves taking off the fairing ;-). And I have the Boom 2 Speaker setup with a little metal grill over the speaker itself so the freewire doesn't sit on the speaker itself but on this grill. Just thought it might be an interesting thought for those looking at a place to put their Freewire on an RG.

My plan B for where to mount it is actually up under the nacelle. Somewhere it is protected but I could actually reach up and hit the button if I wanted. Maybe next time I have thing really apart I might move it.

Phrogg

 

Good job Phrogg. I actually just got back from a trip down to San Antonio and Houston, setup worked great. I have the freewire mounted just under the driver side fairing, that is accessible by removing windshield and the popup dash panel, not having to remove the whole forward fairing. Not quickly accessible but not anything more than 90 seconds to get to either. I have yet to need to reset/resync the freewire, and I doubt too many updates are coming to the unit that I need to update the firmware.
I'm pleased with the setup, can intercom with GF fine, hear music, hear bike, gps prompts, make calls through bike, all good.

 

@cactusred are you using a 7 pin din port for your RGS? Also using the Freeware, have you managed to get CarPlay to function?

 

If you go up a half dozen posts, you will see my post, which includes pictures, showing I have the Freewire plugged in to the dash 7pin din connector on my RGL, powered, sitting right next to my cardo packtalk bold unit, also shows the boom unit, before and after plugging my phone into it, which shows the telephone, then android auto. I do not have an Iphone, so no carplay, but as can be seen, the android auto button and menu is pictured, which is the same thing as your car play indicator and menu.
The unit is now powered and sitting in my front fairing.

 

I do have CarPlay actually working and functional. Basically I had to modify the Communications Cable (from the Audio P&A to the 7 pin DIN) and jumper the passenger mic always on and that makes Carplay activate without a headset plugged in. If you do plug in a front headset then it disables CarPlay. But this works for me because the Freewire does not show up as a mic although it works as one. So plugging in the Freewire into my modified cable makes it work. I'm running with a Sena 30K right now that I borrowed from someone else who found they sounded like crap compared to his Boom 20S (because he is using a WHIM and doesn't get Stereo). Plans are to purchase Cardo's after Christmas (gotta wait and see if anyone decides to buy me a set ;-) ).

I've thought about making up some of these cables. I have all the parts sitting here to make what Sierra sells as an 8' long cable. I could make them about 6" long so you could house it under the fairing with the Freewire setup. At the same time it could be modified to allow CarPlay to work.

 

I had to add a ground pin to number 12, on the fairing P/A connector I believe on my Streetglide but on my RGL, I didn't have to do anything.

 

I am so glad I have the 2020 with packtak bold and android auto. Great set up. We were issued iphones by DHS. After using Android for so many years I can see why there would be issues. Some of the most unintuitive software, interfaces with poor functionality. Even if you don't have a radio the Bold unit is awesome. Mesh is the deal and no need for CBs since it supports 12 or 15 riders. We never ride more than 6 bikes at most so everyone can communicate easily and seemlessly. Just pair it with your phones and you have awesome stereo, xm radio etc. But android auto is a whole different ball game. Really awesome on the Ultra.