I'm new to the President radios so what are the benefits of the Uniden you mentioned over the President Bill? Thanks
So, for me, all I really needed was something to listen to local CB traffic and occasionally talk to users in the immediate area. I'm not a 'cb power users', so I didn't need SSB, linear, or any of that other stuff. Just wanted to hear trucks on the highway in my immediate area. I didn't want a large CB cluttering things up. The way I have my VHF set up (Motorola CDM-1550) is to have the RF deck mounted behind the rear seat. I have a 6 gauge power feed coming direct from the battery and my coaxial cables there. I had a work 800MHz radio mounted in the truck, but had removed that at some point. The Uniden has the RF deck as a separate module. It's about the size of a paperback book. I mounted that in the back and connected to the existing NMO mount I had on the roof. The CB has all the controls, display and speaker on the hand held mic. The interconnecting cable is an RJ-45 cable.
So, small RF deck mounted behind the rear seat. Utilized existing 12 volt fused distribution block I already had installed for other radios. I used a speaker up front that I had from the 800MHz radio. I ran an Ethernet patch cord from behind the rear seat up to the dash board and installed an RJ-45 jack.
When I wanted to use the CB, I'd just pull out the mic and plug it in. Out of the way when I didn't need it (most of the time) but there when I was on longer trips.
All the controls are in the mic itself, and the mic is about the size of a standard professional radio microphone.
The external speaker made up for the shortcomings of the internal speaker in the mic, and made it much easier to listen to.
When I didn't need the setup in the way, I simply unplugged the mic from the RJ-45 jack and put it in the glove compartment.
I had the previously mentioned NMO mount on the roof right above the 3rd brake light from the 800MHz radio, so I reused that mount. I'd take the NMO rain cap off, screw my 30 year old Larsen NMO-27 in it's place, and was good to go.
I'm not what you'd consider a 'CB power user'. I didn't need, want, desire SSB, and I wasn't going to pay for it. I didn't need peak/tune by Cletus the golden screwdriver working out of his singlewide trailer down behind the truck stop. I just needed a CB that would let me listen in on local traffic and very rarely talk to users in the immediate area.
With the properly tuned and installed Larsen antenna on the roof, it did all that, and more. I had excellent reception due to the good antenna mounted up high. I could easily hear all the traffic around me (when there was CB traffic) and I could easily hear all the yakkity coming from the DX users (thank God for squelch). The few times I talked to other CB users it worked just fine. When I didn't need it, the antenna was removed and the mic unplugged and didn't have to deal with anything in my way or cluttering up the cab. No knees getting bashed on something mounted under the dash, no antenna hitting things when I was around town. Only thing visible when I had the CB in use was the antenna on the roof and the smallish mic on the dash. Nothing else. When I wasn't using it, the only thing visible was the NMO rain cap on the roof.
My personal truck is a 2018 F350 crew cab, but unlike yours, it's the XL trim, so no center console, vinyl seats, rubber floor.
The antenna tuned up well, I brought home my analyzer from work and had no issues tuning it to a nice low SWR across the band. Radiation pattern was less than ideal due to being mounted at the rear of the cab, but I didn't really have any issues with that since I was only using it locally, and it still outperformed the magmount truck stop antennas that many use.
