The issue with the 980 is the weak final they use. I say weak as it's not rated for much power.
Easy fix. Turn power back a voice watts. I've had mine for over 3yrs now and it's still working. All I did was to lower the dead key on AM to 2 watts and a pep of about 6-8 watts, and same with SSB, lowered power back to about 8 watts pep. This actually helped a lot without adding a heatsink or fan. Member Grogan, I beleive, added a small fan to his and I haven't heard him post about a failure. Other than that, you get a brand new radio for right around $110 shipped to you. Same with the wireless mic, they can be had for about $40. I paid twice this much when I got my mic as it just came out when I got it. But the radio gets good on air reports as stated above with both the wireless mic and an older uniden bearcat mic for the PC68/78 radios.
I will say I don't use the radio much anymore, but when I do, it doesn't get hot or hasn't burnt the final even with a long rag chew. A small fan is easy to add, or even cutting the power back. And these radios don't drift and are spot on out of the box as far as frequency goes.
The mic I choose is due to my voice, so that isn't a must, but the stock mic just sounded muddy with my voice. The wireless mic sounds great as far as I have been told by more than a few like said above, so I don't think it's a case of getting bad reports as beleive me we have some audio critics around here that will quickly let you know if you are off frequency or sound bad.
What radio you decide to get is up to you, don't let me or a yoke else push you into something you're not comfortable with. As far as drilling a hole, his mini van is old as even he has stated, so I don't think drilling a hole is going to hurt value any. But it will keep him from having to maintain it all the time, especially if he lives somewhere like FL, where its humid and gets a lot of dew in the AM as well as rain. Moisture finds its way into places you wouldn't think possible, so a hard mount isn't a bad idea. But like I said, it's up to the user to choose what he/she wants to do. Are there better options for radios, yes, but they also cost about 2-3 times what the 980 costs. This is speaking of a new radio and not one that is 20-30 years old. I the end, like I said earlier, it's up to the person that is going to be using the radio, as to what they want to do. But even old radios can and do have their issues. Maybe I just got lucky with mine, who knows. But it has been a good radio to me and has served me well when I need it. JMHO's. And don't think I don't own my share of old radios or exports as well. Had 3 magnum 257hp's and out of the 3, one works now. And I sold that one. They aren't the best out there either, God knows they have their share of issues. I know out of the 3 I had, 2 had issues and the 3rd one that is sold I had to turn the power back on and also fix a carrier issue on SSB. The only radio I haven't had a single issue with is the optima mk3, and they aren't made anymore. Shame as they were and still are better than most any export radio out even today. Again, JMO. Not trying to start a radio war. But be honest, we all know things aren't what they used to be. And that is the plain truth.
