Good quality UHF

[craighaty7]

I'm sure this has been asked copious amount of times and I've searched and browsed yet can not find them - what is a good quality UHF radio?
I'm not after the best as I don't think I'll pay the money for it.
I understand the quality of the audio is 90% in the aerial and clean signal. I'd like to make the remaining 10% good too.
What do you buy - features, transmit power, good-sounding mic?
I've asked salesman and they can't tell me why I would pay $200 more for one over the other ... "It's better" - better what?

 

[Malicious]

GME or uniden, get what you pay for.
If your budget is bigger icom also.
How much do you want to spend?

 

[craighaty7]

I have no idea what to spend. I'm guessing $200-$300. Hoping to pick one up tomorrow. Guess I'll be limited to whats in stock. Thinking GME. Doing some Googling and reading now ...

 

[craighaty7]

Just had a poke about and thinking I might need to go to $400 for something reasonable. I like the look of the new GME with remote mic and steering wheel controls, nice.

 

[craighaty7]

Why a din or head unit UHF and not a handheld?
Handhelds are available at the same power (I assume as they 'claim' 5watts) but are so much cheaper than mobile units.

 

[jjohn]

I recently purchased the Oricom 5w hand held from repco for $149. I use it all day at work and when set to battery saver mode it lasts all day and still shows full charge. 1800mah battery. 3 yr warranty and you can screw an external antenna in for in car use. 80 channels and clear reception in and out. Comes with charge cradle and 240v adapter also a 12v car adapter. Solid aluminium case water resistant.

 

[cafedex]

The more you pay, typically the better receiver sensitivity and spurious signal rejection and better speaker, robust mic and more features.

I didn't want to spend much so I bought the Oricom UHF180 as it has a remote head which I've mounted next to the hand brake. It works great however it does suffer from strong signals which "break through", particularly commercial digital UHF radio when driving in the city and suburbs.

With a handheld, you will have very limited range if using in the vehicle. A cheap hand held is useful for field work such as when doing 4WD to help guide through rough patches or loan to friends who don't have a CB.

All mobile CB's will have the same power output 4-5 Watts max - except the icom IC-400 which can be modded to go up to 25W however it would then not be class license legal. Some rigs have features such as selcall, just about all have CTCSS and DCS plus "range extender" which is full duplex repeater function.

To get the best out of the radio, you will need to put the antenna as high as possible and selecting the right antenna element for the surrounding area makes a difference too. Short 3dB (about 6") for hilly areas, 6dB (most popular - the one with the centre coil) for general purpose or 9dB for open flat terrain (has 2 coils and about 900mm long). Also look at getting a separate speaker. It makes a big difference to the sound quality. I have mine cable tied to the bottom of my seat. The space under the seat acts like a sound chamber radiating the sound up from the floor and it sounds very clean and bassy.


GME tends to be on the expensive side but are a good solid rig. Uniden is also popular. I'm happy with the Oricom apart from the breakthrough however in open road it's not a problem.

Dex

 

[craighaty7]

I picked it up today and got a GME TX3500S and a 6dB antenna. Turned out the GME radios had all the same mics so it was just features I was buying. I really liked the separate head unit but couldn't justify and extra $80 for that, so opted for the very slim 3500.
We'll see how it goes.

 

[acko13]

I have heard that the 40 channel radios will become illegal in a couple of years time, so don't buy a cheap one of those. 80 Channel is the way to go .
No doubt there will be a heap of 40 channel radios on the market soon. Get a 5 watt version of whatever you buy.