This is a nice radio, works as described. Nice having upper and lower side band. Easy to operate controls. The only thing I don't like is the LCD screen is not very bright. The back lights for the knobs are very bright but not the LCD screen. Talked to many people so far so good.

I’ve owned this radio a few weeks now and absolutely love it !
Purchased a really antenna to go with it and I come in crystal clear from a rage of 3 miles !!! Totally awesome !
More than happy with my purchase also the ease of automatic calibration is GREAT ! You can check on your radio performance with just a couple push of a button ! Very pleased !

Yes I have 3 of these, in my car as I drive during the day, in my garage as a base station, a number of the neighbors have them as well we use them during storms mostly to chat and the third of the boat, a lot of mariners are using CB as communications as VHF marine channels are busy. The CB is not a replacement for VHF marine but a supplement for communications. I can also talk to the kids when they are out on the boat from garage. When out fishing with other boats we just pick a Chanel to use.
So very satisfied with these radios, worth the $$$ and then some.

I had bought one of these radios about a year ago at a truck stop. Had nothing done to it, just installed it in my van and turned it on. What a great machine. Get great reports and on side band all I have to say is wow. I live in Tennessee and have on multiple occasions talked to people in England, Florida,California and a few other places. O course that is when skip is in (propagation). Usually I can talk around 15 miles on a regular day. The scan is fast and an easy unit to operate. Only one fault, sometimes if the sun is beating on the screen it is hard to see. Not a problem now, I moved it into my house and use it for my base station.

To make an all in one that really rocks, take the best 40 channel CB made, add SSB, and this is what you get.

But if you were to add a full scanner package to this (including trunking and all the major bands), you'd have a unit that you'd see in every truck in the US within ten minutes.

It could easily retail for $699.99 and people would be buying like there's no tomorrow!

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE take this unit and add a full on scanner capability to it (and include trunking and true voice). My only other modification would be to have a dedicated PL259 exclusively for the scanner section, so you can run a discone for multi band listening.

As for the microphone, I personally would wire up an RK-56 speech compressor microphone for nice, clean input to this puppy!

Now, on the bench, tune it up, and paste the pots to keep it in tune, and the vibrations away from the alignment work.