I have done some additional, extensive testing and found answers to the very questions you are asking. The short answer is there is a specific process you must follow. Before beginning this process, certain settings and pairings have to first be in place.

1. Make sure your PackTalk is paired via Bluetooth to your iPhone. Do this without the bike being powered on or without the phone being plugged into the bike.
   1. power on the PackTalk,
   2. go the the Bluetooth settings of the iPhone
   3. press and hold the bottom button the PackTalk for 5 seconds until in begins flashing rapidly (I forget the color combination)
   4. look for the PackTalk bold on your iPhone and select it to pair it.
   5. confirm pairing is successful
   6. turn off your PackTalk

Before continuing, it is ABSOLUTELY important to make sure that you disable the Rider Headset on your bike so that the PacTalk is not nor ever gets paired to the GTS radio.

1. power on your bike
2. go to 'wireless headset setup'
3. make sure rider headset is set to disabled

It is also extremely important to confirm that the phone is not paired to your bike by checking the Bluetooth settings. If you see you phone listed under Bluetooth devices on your bike, click on it and choose 'forget device'.

The last preparation step is making sure that the Audio Routing options - for music, coms, and prompts are all set to headset and not the bike's speakers.

So at this point...

1. Your PackTalk has been paired to your phone but your PackTalk is powered off
2. There are absolutely no pairings between your phone and your bike or your PackTalk and your bike (if there were, they should have been deleted or 'forgotten' by now)
3. Your bike is powered off and your phone is not plugged into the USB port of your bike
4. All 'Audio Routing' for music, coms, and prompts are set to the headset and not the bike's speakers

Here is the process you will follow for the rest of eternity to get this to work. Any deviation from the process will cause weird, unpredictable, and illogical behavior between the functionality of the iPhone, GTS radio, and PackTalk bold.

You MUST CONNECT & POWER ON DEVICES IN THIS ORDER.

1. Make sure you have no audio of any sort playing on the iPhone. In fact to be safe, close the Music app on the iPhone altogether.
2. Plug the iPhone into the USB port of the bike.
3. Power on the bike and wait a few seconds for the CarPlay icon to appear or until the GTS goes to the CarPlay Screen.
   1. If music starts playing, sometimes the bike remembers the status of CarPlay when it was last connected, pause it immediately, either on the CarPlay screen of the bike or the phone itself, unplug the phone from the USB port on the bike, shutdown the bike, and start from step 1 of this section again.
4. Power on the PackTalk.
5. Listen to the PackTalk speakers to hear the welcome message and the message that says your iPhone is connected.
6. Wait about 10 seconds, at the most, for all of the connections to establish and settle down.

That's it. Use Siri or CarPlay to your heart's content. I strongly recommend getting a PackTalk Bold because it has 'Hey Siri' functionality built into the microphone without having to press any buttons on the headset. For example, if I want to make a call, I just say, "Hey Siri", wait for the Siri indicator on the GTS as well as the audio prompt, and then say things like "Call my wife", "Send a text to...", "get directions to", "read my last text", or anything you want Siri to do.

I also want to add that all incoming and outgoing phone calls work perfectly and audio routing goes to the PackTalk speakers 100% of the time for both.

The only caveat to this setup, and I have not given up yet, is that if you say "Hey Siri, play Crazy B*tch by Buckcherry", it will play through your PackTalk speakers. I will only say, and I am sure you will not believe me and test for your self, there is no easy way without screwing up other functionality to get the audio to your bike's speakers. I digress. More to come on this topic in a future post.

Lastly, the only thing that remains to be tested, and I have every intention of doing so, is DMC communication mode with my buddies who also have PackTalk devices. I had odd an odd issue last summer, but I had not figured all of this out yet, wherein, I could not communicate with them in DMC mode unless I disabled the Rider Headset on the GTS. I am hoping since the above configuration already involves disabling the headset, I should be good to go.

I will be traveling to Nashville for the next few days so I will not be able to do any more testing until I return on Friday. In the meantime, give this a shot, and let me know if you find any of this helpful.

If anyone has any recommendations on funs things to do do in Nashville or wants to meet up for a drink, let me know.

 

RiderX,
Thanks for the write up. I’ll try the steps you supplied to see if I get Nav prompts through the Packtalk.

The Wife and I will also use DMC mode so we’ll try that using CarPlay to see if it works.

As far as the Bold goes, we have a group of 7 people in our DMC Pack. It became a pain in the butt with people saying “Hey Siri” do this, do that. We decided as a group to just use the buttons, it’s much less intrusive to the group.

Thanks Again

 

After reading this madness, it confirms why I prefer the simplicity and effectiveness of a wired headset through the BOOM GTS with a CB module. Most of the riders I ride with have a CB and wired headsets.

No charging. No WHIM. No expensive headsets. No screwing around pairing to the bike or other headsets. Just tell everyone what CB channel your broadcasting and everyone’s connecting at 2-3x the range of wireless headsets. And we NEVER have to worry about a dead headset battery on a ride.

just seems crazy that the transition to “modern” communication is so inconvenient, complicated and far less effective than the simplicity and range of a CB and wired headset. No thank you on moving to wireless headsets.

I have full access to Carplay, phone calls, using either the bike’s speakers or my wired headset. Only 3 rules to follow:
1) plug in iphone
2) plug in headset
3) make sure iphone has cell signal

Then ride!!!!

 

What wired headset do you use? One of the reasons I bought a 2019 was to be able to use carplay, I bought a SGS because I liked the color and I don't ever actually wanna talk on my phone going down the road but I enjoy Caplay for music and Waze. I'm glad they didn't disable the feature.

 

I use the BOOM Premium half helmet Headset (76000730) https://www.harley-davidson.com/stor...s-headset#tabs and the BOOM Premium Full Helmet headset (771117-10) https://www.harley-davidson.com/stor...ations-headset

Unfortunately on your 2019 SGS, HD eliminated the wired headset port, so you would need to add it (69200865) https://www.harley-davidson.com/stor...sic---comm-kit

With a wired headset, all the nonsense of pairing and charging is eliminated and all the features of Carplay are activated. Back to the future!!

 

I've been following this thread and for now i'm sticking to the wired headset., for the seldom times im going to use it......

But the cool thing I did was make my own quick detach iphone holder out of an otter box,flat head screws,jb weld,and ram mounts,tough claw. It can clip on the road glide console, you know, the part they did not paint this year. and its just as strong as the x-grip but much easier to use,just snap it into the otter box and it ant going nowhere!. ....the closest thing I could find to it is the quad-lock starting at 59$ and you have to leave your phone in quad lock case all the time like the x-grip another pain in the butt.

 

RiderX,
Where do I find the “wireless headset setup” on the GTS? I think I’ve looked everywhere and can’t find it. Unless it’s available if you have the WHIM?!

Before continuing, it is ABSOLUTELY important to make sure that you disable the Rider Headset on your bike so that the PacTalk is not nor ever gets paired to the GTS radio.

1. power on your bike
2. go to 'wireless headset setup'
3. make sure rider headset is set to disabled

 

it isn't available unless you have the whim activated

 

Or the BOOM has a hardwired headset connected. No WHIM needed.

 

i was responding to the post above mine. i don't think the 'wireless headset configuration' option is going to be available if you use a wired headset. i know that before i installed a whim on my bike, even though i had the apple CarPlay 'hack' done, the wireless headset configuration tab was not there.