Drivers CB on a budget combo??

The only “savings” is a radio below a performance minimum due to price.

The rest of a system costs the same.

Do things in steps. That’s “the budget”.

 

As far as a budget radio is concerned, I'd advise to buy one of the brands' lower tier for 50 bucks and less: Uniden 520XL, Midland 1001Z, Cobra 19DX. I use all three of them and they reach out as far as other factory-legal CBs do and I hear as much useful and useless stuff on 19 as does everybody else participating in the great-but-dirty world of 11 meters. They're easy to use, less apt to have the wrong knob turned in heavy traffic milti-tasking, and as reliable as any others. And if/when they break some day, throw it away and buy another for less than the price of getting an expensive one fixed.

The secret to distance for any radio no matter what its cost is the antenna sticking up there in the air catching the waves and the cable connecting the two.

Regarding the continuing debate: It's about what you get on the CB anyway, but I can understand their words better. And once in a while I actually learn something! Like, the cutoff thing. That's why my radios don't visit aftermarket shops.

 

I gave him valid advice so I posted all here.

Truth, not bad advice.

This is very good advice.

This is the truth, the design has NOT changed, it is the same layout, most of all it is really a lot of the same components used for the past 40 or so years.

These radios are simple single conversion, simple ceramic filtered IF with simple transmit strips, even the SSB radios are the same.

Shouldn't cost more than a few bucks more.

It is the simplest radios that seem to work the best.

The OP is asking for quality system within a budget.

So is this wrong?

Oh ... this hurts your feelings?

It seems to be the truth.

I ask because you seem to throw out things that won't ever make sense to people and isn't applicable to the question. Showing scope images without an explanation is like telling a martian what a cow is.

I know what it is, I had to learn it, there are a couple terms, what Rabbi posted (link) it has an overview but little details why it happens.

dude, my integrity is intact, I am not worried about it, I am worried about confusing people.

Here is an example of what I am getting at.

We had a discussion about dipoles, you used the wrong formula on determine the wavelength of a dipole on the practical side and I called you out on it, you still insisted that it was the right one but hell Rabbi, I and millions of others used the one I posted because it was the practical formula, not the theoretical one. >>> λ=468/ƒ

SO I get others don't want us to discuss this, so I will stop here.

OP I am sorry, my advice is to get any simple radio, have it aligned right from a good tech, focus on the antenna and then see what happens.

 

You are wrong in saying that the radio is damaged, it’s just a matter of your tech turning the modulation pot down to 100%. Even hard drive said in one of his videos that Bells is not a hack shop. Granted running the modulation at 125 % will cause flat topping to the audio input signal, but far as I know, that extra modulation shouldn’t cut off the carrier frequency that the input signal runs on.

 

Best advice, right there

 

I have a President McKinley. Awesome radio. Wasn't cheap but it's even an SSB radio.

Puts out 3.8 watts into my little Italian amp putting out 35. Works good enough for me. Always good radio reports with it. And it fits into a standard radio slot so you can install it INTO the dash should you so choose.

And no need for an external speaker as this radio has a front firing speaker. So the in dash installation works beautifully.

 

Anytime you see a flat line there is no carrier.

Here's the original video.


Although 125% positive Peaks are possible, carrier cut off occurs when the negative peaks reach 100%.
Asymmetry isn't achieved simply by turning a couple screws. This is a typical example of something that sounds really loud while you're sitting in the same parking lot but disappears out of your receiver when you get 5 or 10 miles down the road and meanwhile you'll still hear a stock Cobra 29 long after splatterbox disappears out of your receiver even when the two stations are parked right next to each other and you're 15 miles down the road.

 

I have a question, what exactly did he do to cause the carrier loss?

Edit reason I ask is because I was considering getting one from bells since it seems like a decent place to get one, aligned but not clipped, I'll put an amp behind it.

 

Without looking inside the radio I have no idea what he did. I'm assuming he just opened up the AMC and readjusted the bias to make it appear it had more meter swing. It looks like typical work you would find in any truck stop radio shop. I definitely wouldn't recommend connecting an amplifier to something like that.

 

I don't Facebook anymore, so I won't be dealing with finetune, not that I want to wait that long anyway, I guess I'll looking at Bob's or Ray's.