I liked a lot about the little CR-1a. Had a problem getting the new Firmware installed but finally with help from the CommRadio folks, I got that problem resolved. I could not get the GUI working at all, despite hours of trying on two computers, both Windows 10 machines. The radio is small, highly portable, clear display (wish it was larger!) easy to tune and has a multiple level menu system which is needed because there is no room for more buttons. Switching from frequencies in one ham band to another requires multiple pushes of the "on/off/menu" button and the arrow keys and turning the tuning knob.
The deal breaker for me was sensitivity on the bands, especially the MW broadcast bands. Using the same antennas I use with my 8 year-old Icom R75, Signals clearly heard on the Icom were not audible on the CR-1a. I tried my 45 ft longwire and my 10 ft vertical which are coax fed through a quality 9:1 balun. I ran the antenna leads to a coax switch so I could instantly switch back and forth between the Icom and the CommRadio for a fair testing environment.
I also tried some Ham bands, 15 meter and 40 meter upper and lower SSB plus some SW broadcasters in AM mode. In every case R-75 outperformed the CR-1a. Sometimes they were pretty close but the R-75 always sounded much better, especially on SSB, and both fed to the same speaker system.
A new R-75 cost just a little more than the CR-1a. Of course the R-75 is hardly portable and does not receive VHF or UHF at all. The R75 does receive up to 60 MHz which includes the 6 meter band and the CR-1a cannot get 6 meters or other freqs in the 30-60 MHz region which includes some public service bands like some police and fire coverage.For example, here in California our state highway patrol uses the 42 MHz area and therefore not tunable on the CommRadio.
Nice radio, portable and easy to tune. Needs some more work, some expanded memory and much better written documentat! ion.
Comparing the CR-1a to a Winradio Excalibur is unfair since the Excalibur costs several hundred dollars more and REQUIRES a computer to function at all. Frankly, the performance of the Excalibur far exceeds the CommRadio system and also exceeds the R-75 in all respects.
All that being said, in my opinion, if you want small portable size, battery operation and access to multiple frequencies like VHF, UHF, FMBCB, Aircraft, etc. AND have access to a decent external antenna, this may be the radio you want.
73 de KJ6FBA
Neil Bell
