Hummm, well after reading all this, I just thought I would drop a "bomb" here, and probably stir things up a little. But, it's not to be doing it on purpose, just an very honest opinion.
I've had a chance to run this radio (it was loaned to me from cbradiomagazine) and I was not overly impressed with it. I used the radio for about 6 days and took it off line and set the 2970dx back up (got tired of it).
Ergonomics - 2 stars (of 5)
TX portion - 3 stars
RX portion - 5 stars
After about 6-7 min. of talking, the power dropped from 75 watts down to 60. I even had a fan on the heat sink, which the heat sink was cool - so why the drop?
After cool down period of about 4 min., power was back up.
Open clarifier! Ugh, I hate that!!
Audio was ok, but not as good as my 2950/70dx models on SSB, (this was from other operators that listened to me when I switched between radio's)
The knobs are not marked very good, it was hard to see where their position was, while sitting just 2' from radio.
(I would think maybe a nickels worth of white paint would be a great idea).
When radio is converted, it looses it's "split freq." capability.
I didn't like the small display, had to have my reading glasses on to see it very well, unlike the 50's/70's with their big display. This radio would never work good for me in a mobile.
I could go on, but this enough.
