President McKinley

I have recently purchased one of these and am quite enjoying this radio.  I wasn't sure which forum to post it in but decided on this one as I have done the export mod.

What I like:

• It fits neatly into the little storage "cubby hole" on top of the dash of my X Trail with the lid partly closed - this should give it some shade from sunlight.   In an ideal world I would DIN mount it, but there is no spare slot and I quite like the onboard stereo / navigation so do not intend on replacing it.   
  

• I've had great radio reports with it on all modes.   
  

• I love the fact that it has a front facing speaker.  This works out great for me as with my old 6900N I didn't have a decent tidy option for mounting the external speaker.  Also, I had some issues with vehicle QRM and the external speaker was making it worse.   I also quite like the front facing mike socket, however, rather ironically,  I think I am going to to have to fit a right angle mike connector in order to keep the lead from obscuring the navigation / entertainment screen and partially blocking my view of the S meter.   
  

• The "span" mode is great and offers a great hybrid way of working between frequencies, bands and channels.
  

What I don't like:

• Some of the options such as RF power can be a bit fiddly to access.
  

• The frequency font is tiny!    Does anyone know if an external frequency counter could be wired up to this rig?
  

• The price!   However, I think this radio has much nicer aesthetics than the Anytone 6666N / CRT 9900 I was considering.  The latter definitely has a bit of an old skool car radio / cassette player look as someone else described on another forum.   
  

In summary:

All in all I am happy with this radio and it is an ideal match for my vehicle and installation location.  As with any radio I buy, there are always things which I wish were different but you can't have it all, certainly not at this price point.

Happy with mine, had it for just 1 year and working well, done no mods to it.

More late night musings after a bottle of wine...

I suppose the way I would compare the Anytone/clones and the Mckinley would be to say that the Anytone/clones are low end amateur radios (although rarely used by licenced hams on ham bands) whereas the Mckinley and similar are high end CBs, hence the large channel readout and small frequency display.   Indeed the Mckinley is a "type approved" set, at least it was before I snipped the white wire and moved the jumper cap. Is this a fair analysis?

Quote :

What I don't like:

• The price!   
  

Radios have fallen in price over the decades. You get infinitely more for your money than you used to decades ago.

If you go on a historic price calculator £230 you can buy a McKinley for in todays money is the equivalent to what £75 was at the height of the CB craze in 1985. That back then would buy you a straight 40 FM rig with nothing more than volume, squelch, RF gain, maybe Mic gain and a channel selector.

Totally agree.
In 1981 I had just left school and was earning £30 per week for 40 hours. I think it was 1982/3 that I bought a NATO 2000 for £120!
You certainly can’t complain about the price of rigs at that comparison.

Round about 1980 i spent the mortgage money one month on a 148GTL-DX.
The divorce came many years later but i recon radio had a lot to do with it lol.

I will be buying a President McKinley soon.

What is the export mod? I just mainly need the UK 40 FM & 27.555 USB.

26CT8162 wrote:

I will be buying a President McKinley soon.

What is the export mod? I just mainly need the UK 40 FM & 27.555 USB.

Hi 26CT8162,The export spec for the President McKinley is 24.715 - 30.105 Mhz.
12W AM,20W FM and 12W SSB.
I hope that was what you were asking.
Tom.
26 CT 4029

Chickenfoot@1987 wrote:

26CT8162 wrote:

I will be buying a President McKinley soon.

What is the export mod? I just mainly need the UK 40 FM & 27.555 USB.

Hi 26CT8162,The export spec for the President McKinley is 24.715 - 30.105 Mhz.
12W AM,20W FM and 12W SSB.
I hope that was what you were asking.
Tom.
26 CT 4029

Yes thank you very much for the info.

Hi I just fitted a president McKinley in my car it's a lovely radio but I can't seam to find the 27.555. it's a expanded one From knights. Anyone else having the thiss problem. Thank you 26CT3339 Andy

I see a lot of McKinleys for sale second hand and now I know why, I bought one and sold it on in two weeks. Good quality but I found the menu system maddening. We can all navigate menus, they can be awkward, but it was the inconsistency that got me, press and hold the button to get the secondary function, or press TX at the same time as the button for it to do something else, or another button press '.' first to get access to the second function, or some functions press two buttons together then that button to make it do something else, I haven't got the patience to remember or be bothered with that, and downright dangerous when you're driving, every time I wanted to adjust something I had to pull over and get the manual out.

I'm just about to try to ues the memory founction I hope it's not to hard it does fit in the car dash lovely.