Recently this chinese UHF CB has become available via ebay
at the low price of $165-$195 delivered depending on options.
Model number is OM-477CB and is about 1/2 cost of my other 5 watt handhelds.
They are cheaper if brought in
bright saftey colours and a friend brought 3
bright orange ones with the acessories packs and these I have reviewed over the last two weeks.
On basic RF performance, they are outstanding. Measured with professional equipment they exhibit very high receive sensitivity and transmit a slightly stronger RF field than even my UH076 Uniden which has been highest I have so far measured.
This could be because of the slightly longer full length detachable(sma connector) 1/4 antenna.
The audio is a little shrill, but user tests place there actual in hand performance as equal to or better than most other radios.
The display is your standard little LCD screen, harder to read and with smaller text than most handhelds these days.
The unit uses a solid diecast internal chassis, and has large 1200mah rechargeable 6v battery with a long standby life of 4-5 days , and have a really decent belt clip.
Documentation is poor and its hard to get to know how to set it.
For example I use the CTCSS private channel function a lot, and while this unit has it, I could not figure out how to set one channel with CTCSS and have another channel without it set.
I eventually discovered that this radio has two fundamently different modes that toggle on and off when you turn the radio on with the function key held on.
Mode 1 is channel mode and it gives you your standard 40 channels which are pre programmed.
Mode 2 displays the radios frequency and allows you to transmit anywhere within the CB band in increments that you can set even in between the legal 25khz steps.
You can even program different repeater offsets, not that this is off much use.
The units I reviewed came with the acessories pack which was free purchased at the $170 'buy it now price' and this includes both mains charger and an in car charger.
External speaker/microphone and an earpiece and Vox setup.
I.E. everything you could want, and they work
well. Set up in a mobile phone holder and using a external mike they gave great car tot car performance.
I tried to contact the supplier over the confusing and skimpy instruction book and got no reply, so if you got this product it should be great but if it dies I wouldn't count on much support.
website - provides some more info
http://www.gotools.com.au/