What is the best side band CB radio to buy?

[jbantennaman]

If you were looking for the maximum amount of transmit power and wanted to talk for distance, which old or new CB radio would work the best?

How much is a Browning Golden Eagle worth?

Can you still get tubes for it or was it solid state?

 

[Highlander_821]

If I wanted to buy a new CB with SSB mode, I would get a Galaxy 959.

 

[FLRAILMAN]

What is the best sideband CB radio to buy?

You didn't specify base or mobile, however by your enquiry about the Browning Golden Eagle, I am presuming that you are interested in a base station. I still have a working Cobra model 2000GTL SSB model, if & when it dies, I am going to purchase the Galaxy DX2457 SSB model

Classic Cobra

Galaxy DX 2547 AM / SSB CB Base Radio - Electronics Superstore www.WalcottCB.com

If you need service or parts for your Browning, check this out:

THE BROWNING GOLDEN EAGLE STORE

Good luck & take care.

FLRAILMAN

 

[jbantennaman]

Thank you for all your replies.

Yes in my haste, I forgot to mention that I was interested in a Base Station.

I gave my dad's away some 32 years ago and did not know what I had.

All the shortwave guys were looking at it with open mouths - because they said that it would be very easy to convert to shortwave.

My only question to them was where would you get the crystals and what would you want with a transmitter that was only 4 watts when the tubes were new.

 

[Patriot15]

The Magnum 257 is a nice unit that you can run as a base. Open it up for 10 and 11 meter.
Are you looking new? The Uniden Washington is a top notch unit too.

 

[prcguy]

For the price of some exotic CBs you can get a nice used 100w HF radio that the expensive CBs can't hold a candle to.

I used to sell and service CBs in the mid to late 70s and the Browning Golden Eagle series was not that great, especially for the price. They sounded good on transmit and the receiver could tune all over the place but otherwise there are better radios. Many of the old tube type CBs have some special qualities over their solid state counterparts like very smooth sounding audio and most tubes are not a problem to find these days.

The best performing CB that I have ever encountered was the CPI series, CP-300, CP-400, CP-2000 etc. These had very good receivers with tight IF filtering and were built like a tank.
prcguy

 

[14IR067]

ALBRECHT - AE497

http://www.funktechnik24.de/ae497.jpg

 

[N4JNW]

I can't belive anyone has said anything about the Uniden Grant XL?

The Uniden Grant is by far the BEST SSB radio ever produced. Even radios today cannot match up to it's standard. The Uniden Grant LT isn't half the radio the original Grant XL was. You can't buy XL's new anymore, but if you're patient you can find people who have them for sale that are in good shape. If it has a channel kit, don't buy it. The XL's are notorious for being hacked to p*ss so they can go into the 10M ham band, and they don't like it. The same goes for an echo board. Yeah, echo may be cool on AM when used in moderation, but on sideband, using echo will either A - Get you no contacts, or B - Get you ran off the air. On sideband, clarity and loudness is the name of the game. You want to be loud, because audio is power on sideband. But, you also want to be clear. The loudest radio in the world isn't doing you any good if your speech is a garbled mess coming out of the other guy's speaker.

To whoever says the Cobra 148 is the best, do some research and you'll find out that for several years of the 148's production, they were actually made by... wait for it... Uniden. The new 148's that you would buy nowadays are total junk right out of the box. The older 148's (Dynascan I belive) are carbon copies of the Uniden Grant XL. Only when Cobra told Uniden to bite the big one and went off on thier own, did thier quality slide. The "Phillipine" Uniden Grant XL's and Cobra 148's are much better built radios, and are built beefier with 1/4 watt resistors and better transformers than thier followings. The "new" Grants had 1/8 watt resistors and just couldn't take the abuse that thier fathers could handle. Granted they were still nice radios, you'll pay some jack for a Phillipine Grant for a reason.

Galaxy 949's and 959's are "cool", but they'l NEVER have the nuts a Grant would. I owned a 959 and took it to a pawn shop and traded dead even for a brand new Cobra 29. That's how unpleased I was with it. The Galaxy 949 and 959 as well as others I'm sure are actually made by Ranger. Open up the case and you'll see "Ranger" stamped on the circuit board inside.

If it's a base station you're after, make one. Getcha a 12A regulated power supply, and you can bring your mobile radio inside.

Uniden Grant XL. Hands down.

 

[XTS3000]

The Grant's are great radios, but the 949/959 have 1 more stage in the receiver that really makes a difference on sensitivity and selectivity. The 949/959's also use many more FETS in the receiver - resulting in lower noise floor, higher gain. SSB sensitivity in the Galaxy 949/959 is also better than the Grant. The Galaxys use a much larger AM power regulator that feed the final power and modulation. Grants use a 2SB1419 regulator which is much smaller and lower current capability. Grants sometimes with normal operation will eventually blow this AM regulator.

The uniden Grant is still running 99% it's original circuit design, which is from the 70's. Not to say this is a bad thing, but newer technology and component technology are used in the Galaxy circuit.

Before the 949/959 Galaxy had no "40" channel FCC certified radios, they went to Ranger and jointly designed the 949/959 as a "test" radio to see if the FCC would even certify ANYTHING from Ranger. Ranger must have had big balls when submitting the 949/959 for certification, becasue both radios have 2 illegal (per FCC) features - adjustable power & roger beep. Even with those features, the radios were certified.

I'd pick the Galaxy over the Grant. Just stay far away from the Cobra 148 with mic out the front. These radios are poorly built and the receiver is terrible compaired to the Grant or Galaxy.

 

[N4JNW]

The Grant's are great radios, but the 949/959 have 1 more stage in the receiver that really makes a difference on sensitivity and selectivity. The 949/959's also use many more FETS in the receiver - resulting in lower noise floor, higher gain. SSB sensitivity in the Galaxy 949/959 is also better than the Grant. The Galaxys use a much larger AM power regulator that feed the final power and modulation. Grants use a 2SB1419 regulator which is much smaller and lower current capability. Grants sometimes with normal operation will eventually blow this AM regulator.

The uniden Grant is still running 99% it's original circuit design, which is from the 70's. Not to say this is a bad thing, but newer technology and component technology are used in the Galaxy circuit.

Before the 949/959 Galaxy had no "40" channel FCC certified radios, they went to Ranger and jointly designed the 949/959 as a "test" radio to see if the FCC would even certify ANYTHING from Ranger. Ranger must have had big balls when submitting the 949/959 for certification, becasue both radios have 2 illegal (per FCC) features - adjustable power & roger beep. Even with those features, the radios were certified.

I'd pick the Galaxy over the Grant. Just stay far away from the Cobra 148 with mic out the front. These radios are poorly built and the receiver is terrible compaired to the Grant or Galaxy.

The 949/959 MAY (I beg to differ on this one) have a hotter recieve, but they will NOT out talk a Grant. I wringed my 959 out to the max, and the best I could get the poor thing to do was around 19-20 watts on sideband. My Grant will modulate upwards of 35. The regulator dosen't like it, and will get hot, but it will do it.

The Galaxy radios also do not have the audio that the Grant does. They're simply just not as loud. In sideband, audio is your life.

Now this was my experience with my 959, years ago. Galaxy may have changed things since then, I surely hope they did. You are however correct in your statement about the Grant's regulator. If you push the Grant, you're going to be replacing regulators. That was the biggest flaw in the design IMO. As far as Galaxy's radios being more "modern" and using more modern technology, if I recall with my 959, the thing had several SMT's on the top side of the circuit board. Meaning, if one of those went bad, you had a doorstop as they're pretty difficult, if not impossible to replace.

So now, it really just boils down to what you want.. If you want a radio that you wont have problems out of, the 949/959 will do fine, as the Grant will. But, if you're planning on being a big talker, a little "help" will make it a whole lot easier on the radio. Texas Star makes a nice little modulator that is the cat's meow for SSB. Leave your radio stock, and make the TS do all the dirty work.

I don't understand why the FCC would bark at an adjustable power, as long as the maximum output was still 4W. Technically, this is the same thing as a "high/low" power switch that Cobra featured on thier handheld CB's for years. The roger beep I can understand maybe. In all actuality, a roger beep is very handy on SSB so the person you're talking with dosen't take off talking when they hear a long pause in your transmission.