Newbie Antenna Question

300 watts, according to Wilson. That's not really the issue, I've never owned one, but I've read where several people said they didn't perform nearly as well as the 1000, and I can vouch for the 1000 being a good antenna. My dummy load will also handle 300 watts, but it's a terrible antenna!

 

I have a Galaxy 93t that I think is a good radio. It has a single 2290, so it does a good clean 80 watts. It's considerably more expensive than the rfx cobra, but it's really not an apples to apples comparison either. The 93t has SSB, frequency counter, and a larger meter. That would be my recommendation. I got mine as a factory refurbished unit from Sparky's a couple of years ago. I'd still suggest you look at a regular stock Cobra 25 or 29. If you look around a little, you can get a brand new one for $80 or so. You can always move up from there. Everybody needs a Cobra or three as a backup. You could also buy an amp later, and install it somewhere it can't be seen in your main vehicle. You could then safely run just the radio in another car if you switched between cars. The radios with the built in amp aren't something you want to be switching between cars all the time, they require a more precise antenna and power supply setup than a stock radio.

 

What you see on the back of the radio is a heat sink for the RFX75. It looks like an amp but it's really a final transistor. The rear on any radio with a heat sink requires proper ventilation as it will get warm by talking on it.

Moving a CB car to car usually isn't hard. Especially if it's a cig lighter plug style. The big thing is when you go to move the antenna you have to recheck the SWR before you talk to ensure it's not high...aka 3 or higher. Again this is easy.

Typically you want to hard wire your CB to your battery anyways to reduce noise interference but on most low powered situations a cig lighter works fine. Now on an export radio style CB with a real amp, you cannot use a cig lighter plug.

What radio to get....well for a first time starter I recommend either a Cobra 25 or a Uniden PC 68. I think one of Sparkys Cobra 25 stealths would be for you.

To be honest with you there's no real CB's with built in amps.....but there's export radios that are not legal in the US that are built to run on the 10 meter bands with amps....like a Connex 4300-300.