New President Randy FCC handheld/mobile CB

[bearcatrp]

SSB is fun when conditions are good. On my Cherokee I had, shot skip from Minnesota to Alaska one evening. He thought I was local as I was coming in real good. Have talked to Texas too on good nights. SSB is a must for me. FM does nothing for me that the Randy II has. It’s good for close range but that’s about it.

 

[niceguy71]

SSB is fun when conditions are good. On my Cherokee I had, shot skip from Minnesota to Alaska one evening. He thought I was local as I was coming in real good. Have talked to Texas too on good nights. SSB is a must for me. FM does nothing for me that the Randy II has. It’s good for close range but that’s about it.

I like sitting at my base station to see what I can reach.... but on a little handheld??? I don't know if I'd enjoy straining my ears to hear somebody on SSB.....if I was out in the middle of no where... I know with all my handheld testing, 2 miles away is all you will get handheld to handheld using the 51 inch telescoping antenna on both radios.... with the 51 inch antenna it should easily reach 4 miles to a decent mobile ... and if you watched the video below of 7 handheld radios all using the tall telescoping antenna's they all gave Signal # 7 to my base station very loud and clear..... 4 miles away could be live saving!

I would think I could add a couple miles to those tests if I had SSB???? and that would be amazing... I own just about every handheld ever made and every time a Cheroke SSB radio pops up on E-bay they go insane money like over $400... sometimes over $600!!! I have yet to spend over a $100 on a handheld.... and I will bite the bullet and buy the Thunderpole TX from the UK someday... $150 US Dollars then another $50 to send it to the USA.... I've talked to them several times and they are willing to put USA channels onto the radio and mail it to me.....
but half the fun of my hobby is getting radios for $15 to $20 bucks off E-bay...... sometimes I go $50 bucks for a hard to find one just to play and see what they can do

I am on the edge of miles upon miles of woods going out to several huge ponds and beautiful rivers..... hikers / kayakers boaters get lost all the time here.... so I know my base station could pick up a handheld from 3 miles during the daytime bad conditions if they had the good 51" telescoping antenna ... and I knew what channel to turn to.... but sadly we don't have channel 9 to listen to anymore.... and during the day 19 can sometimes seem like the super bowl, but I try to leave it on channel 19 while I'm out in my work shop.

thankfully we now have cell towers in my area... a few years ago we had one and it hardly ever worked.... it would never give you a signal if you were inside the house or vehicle... and just barely give a signal outside.... but now they work pretty good.
so I really don't think any campers or hikers will ever carry a handheld CB again in my forest... but they used to.

 

[bearcatrp]

The cherokee had a descent speaker. I still have the radio itself, but no battery and lost the cigarette lighter power brick. I miss that radio. I did use that real long telescopic antenna to talk to alaska and texas. Still have it to use with my Randy I if I were to need it.

 

[GadgetGeek]

There's also the Albrecht AE-2990 AFS CB radio AM FM SSB.

Albrecht AE-2990 cb/ssb walkie-talkie, easy to open.

Albrecht AE-2990 AM/FM/ssb SSB handheld CBRadio with 10 and 11 meter cb band. Same as the Magnum 1012. But this is the European version

www.cbshop.com

 

[bearcatrp]

There's also the Albrecht AE-2990 AFS CB radio AM FM SSB.

Albrecht AE-2990 cb/ssb walkie-talkie, easy to open.

Albrecht AE-2990 AM/FM/ssb SSB handheld CBRadio with 10 and 11 meter cb band. Same as the Magnum 1012. But this is the European version

www.cbshop.com

That looks like my old cherokee I had.

 

[K9KLC]

That looks like my old cherokee I had.

Sure does!

 

[slowmover]

@niceguy71 covered in opening of video the Randy advantage of size & battery life compared to the nine (9) AA battery dinosaurs.

As Randy is thread topic maybe a different thread is still current on brick-weight/size handhelds.


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[slowmover]

Re a question from the Randy video review:

For those who want an “external antenna” to ride along in the car; from earlier in this thread:

Post in thread 'New President Randy FCC handheld/mobile CB'
New President Randy FCC handheld/mobile CB

Post in thread 'New President Randy FCC handheld/mobile CB'
New President Randy FCC handheld/mobile CB

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[slowmover]

Randy 3 with NRC now in Europe.

Here, soon, hopefully.

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[bearcatrp]

No SSB so not for me.

 

[slowmover]

No SSB so not for me.

IMO, not important for handheld, in general.
It’s an HF walkie-talkie able to do well within a reasonable radius for a reasonable amount of time.

Adjunct to stations with their own power.

To do “more” (and it can) means carrying that much more gear along.

NRC is more important. Wholly worthwhile upgrade.

How well — and for how long — would that Cherokee do on SSB with a 2’ antenna here in the 2020’s?

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[kc2asb]

No SSB so not for me.

Not important for handheld.

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SSB never really caught on with handheld CB's. The only one I remember was made by Cherokee sometime in the mid-late 90's You can probably count on one hand (and have fingers left over) the models of SSB CB handhelds made.

 

[KB4MSZ]

Not important for handheld.

This is true. I think having SSB in handheld form is very unlikely to have any real-world practical application.

If President decides to produce one, I will buy the darn thing immediately.

 

[Matcoman]

New to the cb world! I just bought the Randy 2 and must say replacing the antenna with a hys retractable really woke up the unit,pulls in a lot more,I was on the fence between 2&3