Small(er) CB!

[LittleDog]

I posted a short while ago asking for recommendations on a good, full-featured, small CB radio. I'd like to thank all everyone that still still uses CB and offered recommendations, all four of you, and would like to say that I listened to nothing you said and bought a President McKinley instead. Thanks for the help though.

My original request was for small CB radios, and nobody seems to consider this President a "compact" model, that's "good for Jeeps", but I realise now that "small" is relative, and most current CBs are small compared to a Cobra 29.

I just plugged it in; sounds pretty good. Unplugged again to snap these pictures comparing size, and am going to attach it to the mount now. Seems like it has most everything I wanted, plus SSB! Menus instead of dedicated knobs or switches like I'd prefer, but once set up, I think it will be pretty good.

Going to go tackle that manual now, but thought I'd put this up for anyone looking for a road CB, as opposed to only for off-roading.

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[OutlawBeard]

How are you liking the President CB? I'm in the market for a CB right now and Ive been looking at the Cobra which I think is too big and the Uniden bear tracker which also has scanner features but its incredibly expensive, im going to be mounting overhead on a CB Bar

 

[LittleDog]

How are you liking the President CB? I'm in the market for a CB right now and Ive been looking at the Cobra which I think is too big and the Uniden bear tracker which also has scanner features but its incredibly expensive, im going to be mounting overhead on a CB Bar

I am definitely not a radio expert, but the President McKinley has been a great road radio for my wispy beard so far. Your mileage may vary.

There's buttons for scanning and 9/19, but scan is press and hold 2 seconds to activate. I much prefer dedicated knobs/buttons for everything, but I suppose that makes the radio larger, so that was the trade-off. Volume and squelch get knobs, and those are the important ones on the road. Setting RF gain is a bit fiddly. Maybe wish the auto-squelch was set a bit higher, deoending on RF gain, but that's really nitpicking since it is already a cool extra feature.

An important consideration. You are probably going to get spare parts at a truck stop when on the road. CB mics generally have 4 or 5 pins. President CBs are fancy pants and use six and nobody carries them. While typing this, I just discovered that Uniden has a 4 to 6 pin adapter cable, and am ordering one now.

The Cobra 29 was a pefectly good radio, but I agree that its full-size was a bit much for the relatively small jeep cabin. Probably definitely too big to hang overhead. I put mine on the passenger-side of the transmission tunnel. I switched to the President for the size and SSB.

The Beartracker DOES look nice! I was also scared away by the price. They also have the Bearcats, which cost much less, and have a cooler name, but unsure of the differences. I ended up getting a separate little hand-held scanner instead. The automatic scanner frequencies sounds pretty interesting on the Unidens, but I have no clue how it works. I have to program the local scanner frequencies manually, and don't know how I'll do it on the road.

The Bear models sound like a good compromise if you want a scanner too, want something easy to use, and are traveling a lot; I also considered them. But I kind of enjoy scanning both CB and UHF at the same time my way, and can take the scanner to play with somewhere else if I want.

 

[OutlawBeard]

I am definitely not a radio expert, but the President McKinley has been a great road radio for my wispy beard so far. Your mileage may vary.

There's buttons for scanning and 9/19, but scan is press and hold 2 seconds to activate. I much prefer dedicated knobs/buttons for everything, but I suppose that makes the radio larger, so that was the trade-off. Volume and squelch get knobs, and those are the important ones on the road. Setting RF gain is a bit fiddly. Maybe wish the auto-squelch was set a bit higher, deoending on RF gain, but that's really nitpicking since it is already a cool extra feature.

An important consideration. You are probably going to get spare parts at a truck stop when on the road. CB mics generally have 4 or 5 pins. President CBs are fancy pants and use six and nobody carries them. While typing this, I just discovered that Uniden has a 4 to 6 pin adapter cable, and am ordering one now.

The Cobra 29 was a pefectly good radio, but I agree that its full-size was a bit much for the relatively small jeep cabin. Probably definitely too big to hang overhead. I put mine on the passenger-side of the transmission tunnel. I switched to the President for the size and SSB.

The Beartracker DOES look nice! I was also scared away by the price. They also have the Bearcats, which cost much less, and have a cooler name, but unsure of the differences. I ended up getting a separate little hand-held scanner instead. The automatic scanner frequencies sounds pretty interesting on the Unidens, but I have no clue how it works. I have to program the local scanner frequencies manually, and don't know how I'll do it on the road.

The Bear models sound like a good compromise if you want a scanner too, want something easy to use, and are traveling a lot; I also considered them. But I kind of enjoy scanning both CB and UHF at the same time my way, and can take the scanner to play with somewhere else if I want.

I saw somewhere else that someone recommended this mic for the President McKinley https://www.k-po.com/K-PO-NM-532.2.html

 

[LittleDog]

I saw somewhere else that someone recommended this mic for the President McKinley https://www.k-po.com/K-PO-NM-532.2.html

That could be a good option, if my old powered mic doesn't work with the Uniden adapter.

 

[OutlawBeard]

I ended up picking up the President McKinley, going to try and install it this weekend, any recommendation on whether I should wire it to an Aux button or just use the direct to battery wire?

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