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uniden 980 discontinued

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I got mine to swing to 12 watts on side ssb and have a 4 watt dead key on a.m.. use a quality power mic and it works very well with either a texas star 350 hdv or any of several palomars .. I am not proud but wanted to see if the gutlass wonder was good for anything besides a weather radio...very stable on ssb and get good reports ...

From what I have seen here if you do moderate talking with it set up like that you will cook the finals. A 2-3 watt carrier and 8 watts PEP will make it last longer and run cooler. Hope it last's for you.
 
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President is bringing out the new McKinley SSB. There may be a version of that to replace the 980.

mechanic

The FCCID for the McKinley is 2AEOCUT566
They also have an AM looking variant that is called the Johnny III which if the 980 is going to be discontinued would certainly be a possible replacement for the 880.
The Johnny III is on EAS as of 2/1
 
I did the "alert me" tab at Uniden for when they are back in stock, will holler if or when.
 
As I understand it they are POS's plain and simple. Too much noise on reciveve, weather radio noise and recieve insanely poor! Bias set too high routinely at factory causing them to blow the final and driver even unmodified all the time. Weak audio on transmit. Very poor adjacent channel rejection and on and on and on........

The 980 is a sick pathetic joke compared to the Uniden Grant XL or XLT from the early 1990's. The President GrantIII and Lincoln II both based on Uniden boards are not that great as they ship from the OEM. I hear they can be though with some work from really good technicians.

The Display on the Uniden CB's are fairly dumb and unmodifiable. The CPU/PLL is also not ver friendly and really not effecient and poorly designed for anything other than being hard to modify.

I have yet to see anything that represents a huge step up from the 1980's AR-3500 or early 1990's RCI2950 or 1990's President Lincoln. I am still waiting.

We have black box radio's with dirty 4 transistor linear with lots of harmonics and cheap Chi-Com BJT transistors. The Galaxy and COnnex radio's are a step backwards since Ranger took over production. The new President Lincoln II and Grant III are both not advancements at all. The RCI2950DX has lots of features and freq. coverage but poor quality control and insane noise on receive side and the cheapest encoder's and buttons that money can buy.

No one makes an modern SSB CB radio that is worth owning. Galaxy is crap for anyne that wants to really talkon SSB because they are not stabil on SSB because of the cheap parts and lack of crystal filtering that is tight. The RCI2950 is great on SSB but is noisy as hell it will make your ear's bleed. The quality control on most of these radio's is a joke too. The Anytone OEM has a good Uniden Board design and good QC but a lot of the parts that go into them are questionable and end in early death. You also have the problem of obvious issues if you attempt to put them into legit Amateur service you see all kinds of issues show up. That said they are better than anything that carries an FCC Type acceptance if looking for SSB in a new radio. Sadly not all of the cap's are electrolytic cans with leg's a lot of them are SMD so it is not practical to recap them completely to attempt to eliminate early death!

I try to buy old school SSB CB's and just bite the bullet and recap and try to get ahold of NOS obsolete parts etc.....The alternative would be to spend big on amateur gear and pay for it to be modified.
 
Now that is a deal. I don't care what some think. The radio is worth $75 all day!! Just for the SSB use alone it's worth the money. No other radios in this price range with the same features is there?? New radios I am speaking of. Darn good price. Thx for posting that Grogan!! Might pick up another one just for the heck of it if the price keeps falling as it has been.
 
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I must admit @ $75.00 that is a bargain especially with the warranty they have.. just put one in my wifes sooby outback that talks thru a palomar hd250 fet mounted in the rear and it sounds great ..did crank on a pot or three and got the dead key up a bit , got the modulation improved and swings to 14 watts on ssb.. please,I don't need to hear about the finals again as it is a disposable radio !! took it on a 3000 mile trip ang got good reports... nice clean xmit/receive and super stable on ssb ...xxx
 
that's pretty dark dude ... give me a few examaples of what your favorite radios migh be ???... I like the old gear myself ...xxx
 
As I understand it they are POS's plain and simple. Too much noise on reciveve, weather radio noise and recieve insanely poor! Bias set too high routinely at factory causing them to blow the final and driver even unmodified all the time. Weak audio on transmit. Very poor adjacent channel rejection and on and on and on........

The 980 is a sick pathetic joke compared to the Uniden Grant XL or XLT from the early 1990's. The President GrantIII and Lincoln II both based on Uniden boards are not that great as they ship from the OEM. I hear they can be though with some work from really good technicians.

The Display on the Uniden CB's are fairly dumb and unmodifiable. The CPU/PLL is also not ver friendly and really not effecient and poorly designed for anything other than being hard to modify.

I have yet to see anything that represents a huge step up from the 1980's AR-3500 or early 1990's RCI2950 or 1990's President Lincoln. I am still waiting.

We have black box radio's with dirty 4 transistor linear with lots of harmonics and cheap Chi-Com BJT transistors. The Galaxy and COnnex radio's are a step backwards since Ranger took over production. The new President Lincoln II and Grant III are both not advancements at all. The RCI2950DX has lots of features and freq. coverage but poor quality control and insane noise on receive side and the cheapest encoder's and buttons that money can buy.

No one makes an modern SSB CB radio that is worth owning. Galaxy is crap for anyne that wants to really talkon SSB because they are not stabil on SSB because of the cheap parts and lack of crystal filtering that is tight. The RCI2950 is great on SSB but is noisy as hell it will make your ear's bleed. The quality control on most of these radio's is a joke too. The Anytone OEM has a good Uniden Board design and good QC but a lot of the parts that go into them are questionable and end in early death. You also have the problem of obvious issues if you attempt to put them into legit Amateur service you see all kinds of issues show up. That said they are better than anything that carries an FCC Type acceptance if looking for SSB in a new radio. Sadly not all of the cap's are electrolytic cans with leg's a lot of them are SMD so it is not practical to recap them completely to attempt to eliminate early death!

I try to buy old school SSB CB's and just bite the bullet and recap and try to get ahold of NOS obsolete parts etc.....The alternative would be to spend big on amateur gear and pay for it to be modified.
Is it because this radio can't be hacked up as easily like the old ones?

This radio is fine for what it is and the little idiosyncrasies are insignificant to most because those differences will hardly be noticed.

I prefer my older President HR2600 and I have 2 of them and both are chipswitched. I don't use these mobile anymore because they are becoming irreplaceable as such.

I now use the 980 mobile and because I make regular trips through the panhandles, otherwise known as tornado alley, the weather alert comes in handy and it truly works.

No one ever touted this radio as the best out there, but for the price it is good enough.
 
I should explain my definition of hacking up a radio.

Radio Hack Job /verb

1. A new CB radio out of the box and before it is put into service it receives the following:

Echo board
Swing kit
Schottky diode receive kit
Uppers and lowers
Bigger finals
Spread the coils
Talk back
Roger beep
Noise toy

And for a true hack job, cut the modulation limiter.

Did I leave anything out?
 
Last edited:
I should explain my definition of hacking up a radio.

A new CB radio out of the box and before it is put into service it receives the following:

Echo board
Swing kit
Schottky diode receive kit
Uppers and lowers
Bigger finals
Spread the coils
Talk back
Roger beep
Noise toy

And for a true hack job, cut the modulation limiter.

Did I leave anything out?



All you missed are the Nitro knobs and chrome corded RK56. lol
 
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