DTB now selling the CRE 8900

[BOOTY MONSTER]

CRE 8900, DTB Radio's Online Catalog

$299.99

"Radio will come peaked and tuned and ready to use. No additional mods required."

and a question for the folks that have used this radio (or it's anytone 5555 equivalent) ........ how do you feel it compares tx and rx wise to the recent version (blackface) of the RCI 2950DX radio .

EDIT .... please delete . didn't see Grogans thread before i posted .

http://www.worldwidedx.com/export-radios/150162-my-old-friend-president-jackson.html

 

[123kid]

The recieve

It hears better than my 2950 on am and its got a clean rx i can hear everything ssb.The 2950 i can run a power mic with but this u cant so the audio isnt as punchy but very clean.

 

[Lil'Yeshua]

Something to share the double din space in my car with my stereo system. I'm waiting to see if M42Duster gets the CW problem addressed properly.

 

[Mudfoot]

I emailed KeyCB and detailed my problem in requesting warranty service. I even gave a link to the factory RF engineers instructions along with the schematic they sent me. This was Monday that I emailed them.

Haven't heard anything from them yet, although their site claims they will respond within 24 hours. I'll give him a couple more days.

 

[cbradiomagazine.com]

You can run a power mic on the CRE 8900 but in my testing I had problems with many as they overloaded the audio and picked up excessive background noise, but as mentioned in my review the road devil noise canceling power mic seems to work awesomely on this radio. A couple of people who took my advice and added one had the same results. Same great audio with a bit more punch. The stock mic on the CRE 8900 will pick up road noise at highway speeds even with the mic gain set modestly but when I added the road devil it solved the road noise issue and brought even more punch to the audio.

I will say with my 2950DX after some mods/tuning I could get swing to 40 watts on AM from a 3-4 watt deadkey and 40 watts SSB whereas on the CRE 8900 you'll prob see about 20-25 watts AM max from a 8-10 watt deadkey and 50 watts SSB. With the deadkey lowered to 1-2 watts on AM you'll only see 5-6 watts of swing.

So if I was running an amp on AM and wanted a low deadkey with swing the 2950DX will drive the amp much better than the CRE 8900. The CRE 8900 on SSB though is just awesome, paired with the new Sirio antenna I've been using I actually haven't turned on my amp in a couple of months. Just haven't even needed to, the pair has worked so well together and I've been able to contact just about any station I can hear.

 

[Lil'Yeshua]

Cool! I've thinking about getting a Sirio Performer 5000 for my ride. Do you have the pl or the version that you hard mount? Plus ,which one performance wise would be best? I'm still trying to figure out which cable/plug coax to use for the hard mount version. Thanks. I haven't gotten a reply from H&Y yet. I have with Sirio. Love their Italio-English dialect!

 

[kor b]

Is this a user conversion to 11 meter when ordering from DTB?

 

[Mudfoot]

Yes, the CRE 8900 is user expanded by either the function buttons or by using software. In my opinion, software is not mandatory. You can save a little money by not ordering a cable. The radio, I think, does not need an alignment or a peak/tune.

The radio suffers from an inferior Rx circuit design that pumps a crap load of noise. Like dd18 mentions, it becomes painful to listen to. The current offering suffers from the CW sidetone buffering delay (which has a fix involving the removal of a capacitor). Also, the internal and external speakers do not fully disconnect during transmit even though the talkback is turned off. This is very annoying, especially using sideband as the audio is distorted. This fault also has 2 different fixes.
I have been in contact with the factory RF engineer whom advised on these fixes. I am sending mine in for warranty repair with the intention of selling it when it comes back. I just can't take the noisy receive. Its almost as bad as the Stryker 955.

It does have nice transmit audio and frequency stability, along with other neat features, but the noise is a killer.

Just my observation.

 

[gamegetter]

that's a shame, i was really considering this radio.

 

[BOOTY MONSTER]

looks like the 29XX and optima's are still the best "export" radios available .

 

[Mudfoot]

I would agree.

 

[gamegetter]

wanted a smaller foot print radio for mobile use
10 and 11 meters would be good enough for that use mainly 10 and occassionally on 11.

i don't believe the new jackson will cover all of 10 meters

thinking of the new magnum 257hp but dtb does not show on his website.

p.s. i don't like the optima(please don't hammer me on it-that's just not my preference) and i have the 2950dx already

 

[Mudfoot]

I am waiting to just clip the red wire on the Jackson, then see what the other bands cover before I remove the solder bridge.

I've heard DTB dislikes Magnums. I couldn't imagine running an Maxlog, CRE or Anytone in a mobile environment. With the current offerings, I'd run an Optima, 257 or 29XX first.

I believe exitThirteen disables the processor on the Magnum due to flaky audio.

 

[gamegetter]

lemme know if the jackson covers all of 10, that radio would fit nicely in my small truck

 

[Mudfoot]

I think in its stock condition it covers most of 10.