Cobra HH ROAD TRIP Compact Handheld CB Radio

cobra cb radios are the best radios i think. amazon again beat all others on price@easy deals. i'll be back to buy more stuff,you can bet on that.

JUNE 04,2006
I PURCHASED THIS RADIO FOR EMERGENCY PURPOSES, HOWEVER IT SEEMS TO BE VERY WEEK. I AM A DOUBLE AMPUTEE AND AM CONFINED TO A WHEEL CHAIR. I DEPEND ON MY RADIO TO RAISE HELP. BUT, I AM AFRAID THIS ONE WILL NOT BE DEPENDABLE. I AM NOT ASKING FOR THEM TO BE RETURNED OR FOR A REFUND JUST LETTING YOU AND YOUR CUSTOMERS KNOW OF A VERY WEAK PRODUCT AND I COULD NOT RECCOMEND THIS PRODUCT TO ANYONE. COBRA WAS THE TOPS IN RADIOS BUT SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED TO THE QUALITY.
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING;

WILLIAM HEMBREE
WmHembree@aol.com

I bought a pair of these and am very happy with my purchase. Your voice comes through loud and clear, and they are very easy to use for the novice. The only thing that could be improved is the antenna. The reception is great for communicating to nearby cb'ers but if you are out of line of sight they lose their clarity, and things get garbled. Also, you can't hear truckers any real distance away. This is an easy fix. I simply bought a 3 foot 1500 watt antenna to screw into the magnetic base for 10 bucks, and now I can hear cb'ers for miles and miles, and the airwaves are no longer silent!

I "sort of love" this Cobra Roadtrip CB gadget, but only when I'm home and when I can use my both hands on it. It's a bit cumbersome to use while driving and it's too heavy to handle, especially if you have batteries installed in it, so for that purpose I recommend buying the external microphone. I bought a BNC to standard VHF antenna adapter so I can attach my "real" home and car CB antennas to it.

Most important thing to remember is to use the external antenna - it's practically useless without it when you're in a car, unless you have a buddy in a car next to yours. Antenna, preferably external, is the key part of every CB station. I have a 102" whip antenna and I sometimes take it up to the roof of our 15 floor building and talk to people who can't believe how far I am. Moreover, they can't believe that I'm talking from a hand-held, battery operated CB radio. In order to persuade them, I just unscrew that antenna and use the smaller telescopic one and if they can hear me they will confirm I sound like it should. One guy about 5 miles away was saying that his signal meter was close to the max while I was using the big antenna and he could barely hear me with the telescopic one.

The major flaw of this radio when I compare it to my low end Midland CB is the way its squelch feature works (or does not). I don't know whether it's just my particular radio or whether this is a flaw of the entire series, but you have to set your squelch level unreasonably high, which makes you miss a lot of conversations further away from you. When you set your squelch level a bit lower, or whenever someone is right on the edge of squelch threshold, you will hear a lot of unusual noise coming from the radio, almost as if it is undecided and it keeps oscillating back and forth from passing and blocking the signal. This sounds like a driver next to you is pressing and releasing the PTT button 4-5 times a second and it is much louder than the rest of the sounds you can hear on this radio, so it can be very disturbing, especially when you are driving and your loved one is asleep next to you.

NiMh batteries last forever and I don't ever connect it to my car's 12 V lighter output any more. However, another downside is that it requires two different external sources, one for charging the batteries and the other for just using the car power. The provided cable is good only for using the car power and it doesn't charge the batteries. Why not use the same connection for both?

The manufacturer claims that Soundtracker "...dramatically improves the sound quality of the transmission and reception of CB radio signals." I can't see a big difference.

All in all, it's pretty cool to have a hand held CB, but that's all what it is. I don't recommend it for drivers.

this is my first CB radio, so i havent had much experience, but it is really easy to use and seems to function well. the only thing i figure out is how to 'tune' it so that you cant hear the car through it - even though it is a very faint noise. the good thing i thought about this deal was that you get the CB and the antenna in one package, and if you buy a CB and then an antenna it can work out to be the same price anyway. i can use the CB in the house aswell with a 12V adapter, something you can do that others cant.