Searching the top ten worst cb and 10 mt band equipment around the wold.

[jazzsinger]

COBRA 200 GTL DX, RF DRIVER MOSFET REPLACEMENT - RD16HHF1 - YouTube

All that ever goes wrong with them, mine came out the box incapable of driving an ext speaker, was nowhere near accurate with the counter which is seriously unstable,the el panel had irritating whine,the knobs were crap quality,the noise level in the receiver was unbelievable compared to my president jackson and ss3900,

i didn't find any tx faults with it as it was so shite i was terrified to key it even into a dummy load after seeing the rx side of it,suffice to say it was reboxed,returned and exchanged for another president jackson which i will never regret,10 mins was the misfortune i had of owning the biggest pile of shit i ever came across,apparently the tech found even more faults than i did, but then i'd already seen enough to convince me as a serious dx radio it was a joke, mine was an early board, and i must admit it looked nice,after the cobra 148 gtl,148 gtl dx and 2000gtl, it promised so much and delivered nothing, i'd rather use a ham international mufflemode.

 

[Turbo T]

95% of all CB's, after all these years you think the BCD channel selector would be out, and a scan function would be standard

Yep....and maybe a way to remotely mount the face/head, for when you're putting the radio in a smaller vehicle. Similar to what some of the mobile ham radios are.

 

[towerdog]

they have them........in europe, you could get one shipped, with our weak us dollar, for about the same price for a good all mode general coverage HF rig.

 

[jazzsinger]

they have them........in europe, you could get one shipped, with our weak us dollar, for about the same price for a good all mode general coverage HF rig.

Albrecht AE6890
http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?itemId=321053383709&index=4&nav=SEARCH&nid=63894064820

Another radio you might be interested in is the lafayette single hander,like the cobra and many other one handers :

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?itemId=370568219382&index=8&nav=SEARCH&nid=93518314681

I can't vouch for either cb,I'm sure both will be well revued on uk forums where modern dashboards aint as spacious as they used to be,both sellers claim to ship worldwide, the second seller also does the albrecht ae 6890,but only says uk shipping on that, I know him to be the owner of Rocket Radio in the uk and generally easy to deal with so he may ship the albrecht to the usa too:
http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?itemId=390559223022&index=2&nav=SEARCH&nid=62960804758

I'm not sure if posting the 6890 would be a weight issue or a possibility, both radios I believe can operate on all or most european norms,so they can be sold throughout europe,one of those normes,Spanish or ES stting would give 40 ch AM/FM at 4w on FCC frequencies, I doubt they both would be technically illegal to operate in the US,due to non FCC certification,I'm sure both will have hidden mods to cover at least 6 bands,most european rigs do now,I can't see these being different. But google the model followed by mods and you'll soon find out.

AM/FM aint really my thing,in my city Am is ancient modulation,FM,fanny modulation,an affectionate Glaswegian term for retard.SSB is the only way worth going here and has been for 3 decades or more.

 

[wls27mhz]

Do you both know the chinese walkies Wouxung, Baofeng, etc.?
What are your opinion about then?

 

[kd-5-bgt]

Wouxung and Baofeng are vhf/uhf radios as far as I know ....they havent been out on the market for very long,a couple of years or so.From what I have been hearing it is a toss up.Some people like them some dont.

I have heard from some that they are junk and will last just a short time and fall apart and the customer service is weak at best

The way I look at them is you get what you pay for

 

[VA3ES]

Do you both know the chinese walkies Wouxung, Baofeng, etc.? What are your opinion about then?

I am quite familiar with both. I own several Wouxun radios - two dual band KG-UVD1P, and a KG-816 single-band (VHF). Many of my friends have various KG-UVD2P and KG-UVD3P radios and all are pleased with them. None of mine have given me any problems, are reliable, and all work as intended. I am also familiar with the Baofeng. Lot's of my buddies have them and I haven't heard any complaints.

Stay away from the Wouxun dual-band mobile, and stay away from Puxing radios.

 

[towerdog]

Albrecht AE6890
http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?itemId=321053383709&index=4&nav=SEARCH&nid=63894064820

Another radio you might be interested in is the lafayette single hander,like the cobra and many other one handers :

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?itemId=370568219382&index=8&nav=SEARCH&nid=93518314681

I can't vouch for either cb,I'm sure both will be well revued on uk forums where modern dashboards aint as spacious as they used to be,both sellers claim to ship worldwide, the second seller also does the albrecht ae 6890,but only says uk shipping on that, I know him to be the owner of Rocket Radio in the uk and generally easy to deal with so he may ship the albrecht to the usa too:
http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?itemId=390559223022&index=2&nav=SEARCH&nid=62960804758

I'm not sure if posting the 6890 would be a weight issue or a possibility, both radios I believe can operate on all or most european norms,so they can be sold throughout europe,one of those normes,Spanish or ES stting would give 40 ch AM/FM at 4w on FCC frequencies, I doubt they both would be technically illegal to operate in the US,due to non FCC certification,I'm sure both will have hidden mods to cover at least 6 bands,most european rigs do now,I can't see these being different. But google the model followed by mods and you'll soon find out.

AM/FM aint really my thing,in my city Am is ancient modulation,FM,fanny modulation,an affectionate Glaswegian term for retard.SSB is the only way worth going here and has been for 3 decades or more.

Those are cool but for the same price I could buy any 10meter/export on the market, maybe a used kenwood/yaesu/icom all mode.
Occasionally foreign gear makes it over here, probably soldiers stationed in europe, people that move here, etc and when it does it typically ends up on ebay listed as a regular dumb old CB radio, and nobody bids on it.

Maybe its just having the only radio of its kind on the north american continent, maybe its just because the euro designs are just sexy but I collect these radios whenever I find them. A few of the locals here have discovered the virtues of FM.....or FM is slowly becoming a symbol of elite status in a world of overmodulated and booming loud and distorted crap.

SSB is king for range, but try having a QSO with more than 2 people and somebody is going to have to be Donald Duck.

Mobile SSB is even worse, most of the 10 meter/exports and most of the FCC rigs with modified clarifiers for TX are never dead on freq. What they call a clarifier we used to call a "slider" when I was a kid, if it covers more than a couple of kHz on TX and RX, its a slider used to "slide" in between channels, maybe even get on an RC channel.

 

[G0HZU]

In terms of 10m band radios the worst I've used is the Uniden 2830.

I have one of the early versions here and the whole radio is a poor design. It looks nice and it covers the whole 10m band (plus CB if modded) but it is an awful radio.

I know a lot of people like them but the receiver design is dire and the transmitter is dirty with high IMD and a high Tx noise floor.
The received audio is poor via the internal speaker, there's a scratchy 'talkback' problem on SSB Tx and the LCD display is hard to view at an angle. The S meter is a joke and the receiver is so lame you can jam it across all 4MHz at full scale on the s meter with various methods that a regular CB is immune to. Total receiver wipeout.

On FM mode the receiver input IP3 is something like -55dBm which is about 40dB worse than a mk1 Cobra 148GTL-DX. This is so bad it's funny yet some people love these radios?

The mic socket has an unreliable connection to the cheap and tiny mic, the PA transistors are fitted to a rough cast heatsink (so they get thermally stressed due to poor contact smoothness)

To me it is a complete disaster of a radio (crap for CB use and also ham use) but because it covers 4MHz and has a digital readout and a fiddly 'digital VFO' tuning system then it qualifies as a serious radio to many and has achieved a cult status.

On the 11m band the worst 1970s/1980s export radios I've used were made by cybernet. I've not used any of the newer generation (Uniden clone) radios made in China after about 1990 but apparently some of these are quite poor too. My most hated Cybernet export radios were the Tristar 747, Hygain V, Multimode 2, Ham Jumbo and Colt Excalibur. There were various clones of these that were just as bad.

There were also some hideous UK40FM CB radios as well eg the Fidelity 1000M and the Economy 40 were probably the worst mobile FM CBs I ever came across.

 

[bob85]

i have to agree cybernet ssb sets are total garbage, it baffles me how some folk believe they are better than uniden ssb sets or why they would pay more than 40 quid for a jumbo,
worst uk fm rig probably the convoy1