radio days

Hi Folks,

Getting prepared for our forthcoming trip I decided that I'd invest in a UHF radio , having been involved in the very early days of CB radio in OZ (anyone remember Just CB??) I thought I knew what I wanted ...

So I take myself off to Tricky Dickies and to my horror I am unable to buy a gutter mount for my antenna, they did not even have a magnetic base , so on their suggestion I made my way to supercheap and found I was able to get the gutter mount and antenna and base and cable, whilst I was there I noticed a "Superworks" UHF CB prices at a very reasonable $249-00 so I thought why not?

So off we go and I fit this in the car, It actually works quite well but I am most concearned at the build quality, for example the microphone is hard wired into the set so a broken wire in a mike cable requires opening the set up and a soldering job to replace it. The microphone also has channel up/down buttons and a hi/low power switch on it, the transmit switch is encased in a rubber boot and is very hard to hold depressed and unless to press in the exact spot can tend to cut out.

The lcd dispaly is vary basic and has no sig strength / TX power out dispalys other than an RX or TX in small text.

The case and mounting bracket are in black plastic

I had a play with the set overnight and whilst it seemed to work ok the quality of the build concearned me so much that I pulled it out packed it up and returned it to supercheap for a refund which they gave me without question.

I kept the antenna and mounting hardware which I had fitted to my old tarago.

I then pottered over to Trickies Dickies and splurged $296-00 on a Uniden UH-089 which appears to be a much more robust and quality product ..

So I suppose the point it that whist it is cheap , one might not be happy with the results

But to give supercheap their due they did not argue and refunder cheerfully

I've bought a few things from them which have been fine including a jocky wheel for my trailer and a very cheap hand held UHF set which cost $19.95 and works like a charm..

Oh well you live and learn

Regards
John