cb radio comparison

Normally i use a President Grant 11, (2} but found the bands were very quiet. i connected up my old Superstar 3900 from back in the day and pulled in some European skip. Then i connected a 10 m radio and got some more skip. Seems the Grant is a bit deaf !!

Hi Dave,

That's an interesting experience and thank you for posting it.

I had heard although anecdotally that the newer CB radios were deaf in comparison to the older sets. When you consider that the circuitry is very similar apart from microprocessor control of the RF frequencies for mixing etc. it seemed a bit surprising. I have heard tales of 'phase noise' and jitter errors with modern DDS methods but they seem to have cracked it as far as Amateur Radio equipment goes so makes you wonder if this is really an issue on CB radios.

Amateur Radio equipment especially from the big four I would understand to have better sensitivity and S/N capabilities compared to mass production consumer radios so I can see that such dedicated radio equipment would fare better. (Would explain why so many CB'ers shell out good money for Amateur equipment even though they can't use most of the frequencies legally.)

There's a lot more to it than straight forward comparison though as well as biased views unfortunately but good to hear someone's experience first hand regardless.

I suppose when you boil it all down it's all about what you're happy with.
I love my old Yaesu FT757 to bits quite literally after stripping it apart and refurbishing it so even if someone gave me the opportunity to compare radios I'd still be more happy with the old girl.


All the best,
Victor