Uniden BEARCAT 980 40- Channel SSB CB Radio with Sideband NOAA WeatherBand 7- Color Digital Display PA CB

Everyone has a little bit different setup for their CB’s. I decided that I wanted to put money into a great radio with a lot of features. This one fit the bill, and of all the CB’s I’ve run (President McKinley, Cobra 29LX Max, Retivis AM/FM CB) it’s the nicest. The contrast is not as aggressive as some displays, with Daytime mode being just bright enough to hack it. The colors were all vibrant, but it was missing a true amber color. No big deal. I paired this radio with a 3’ Firestik antenna and a 5” Pyle PA speaker. I wanted to test the full gamut of features. Overall, the radio functions extremely well. First off, setting the SWR in radio is both easy and effective. The accuracy seems to be pretty good. After hooking up the antenna, I tested out some of the features. SSB works great on both upper and lower, and you can easily dial out the chipmunk voice. The audio quality is the best on any radio I’ve used, on SSB or AM. The PA feature is basic, but functional. I really have no need for a PA, other than to say “Re-elect Mayor Goldie Wilson”. It works, much to the consternation of my neighbors. This radio, with the aforementioned antenna, has excellent TX and RX. SSB’s extra wattage helps with that. In the end, there were a few features that I would have preferred to see: CTCSS, Roger beep, anbd amber lighting. But, none of them were dealbreakers and the radio otherwise performs perfectly. Read more

I absolutely love this radio. All the features and accessibility make this the best I've owned so far. I was skeptical at first due to some of the negative reviews on Amazon, but after playing with it all day today, I'm glad I bought it. It can be peaked and tuned though it's set perfect out of the box. Doesn't drift at all and the internal diagnostics is a plus though I'm not sure how accurate it is. I purchased this as a replacement from a burned up unit, so I thought. Old one wouldn't transmit and it was very old. Plugged in my new, cheaper antenna to this one and the diagnostic test failed the antenna. Actually metered it finally and sure enough my antenna is bad. So I threw away my old unit for nothing I'm sure. Albeit aside, I'm more than happy with the clarity out of this one and is a huge upgrade from what I had. Weather bands sound great. Memory scan and full channel scan as well as side band are great features. Can fine tune everything quite easily. I watched a single YouTube video about this radio and that's all I needed. No need to break out the manual for this unit. Once you get the idea, it's very simple to navigate through all the features. I put this one in my 2014 Silverado z71 right in the center console. Easy power access and ability to hide all the wires. Looks like it belongs. Highly recommend this unit for new or seasoned operators. Just make sure you don't skimp on the antenna. I'll be buying another Firestick and mounting opposite my radio antenna on the hood. I would also recommend not getting a roof mount antenna for this unit. From other reviews, the cb will fail the diagnostics test. Get a good center load and ground it properly and make sure it's tuned right. Order a Firestix antenna as well Walcott radio has the best prices. Read more

Just getting back into the CB/11 meter world, I wanted a compact unit with legal power and SSB I could set up as a base. So far this little radio has worked phenomenally for my purposes. Paired with a Vertex power supply, this little radio has been quite the legal powerhouse. The built-in SWR meter seems to work well, sound is decent although I use an external speaker and the features are great. Of course, you must have a good coax and antenna. Presently, while I await my base antenna to arrive, I'm using a home-built field antenna on a tripod with a 102" whip, 4 10' radials and 50' of quality RG-8 coax. All in all the tip of the antenna is about 14' or so. Swr is registering 1.2-1.4 and this Bearcat eats it up. I've been told my radio transmission sound like a cellphone and even with a ground oriented home built antenna, it talks and hears exceptionally well. I've hit 14 miles verified from my front porch and the receiver was surprised I was running barefoot since it was such a strong signal. At first was it was reported back that the mic was soft-sounding. Since I was going to buy a new one anyway, I modded the factory mic and now there is no need for a replacement. If you open up the mic, you will see there is a piece of soft felt over the mic hole. Once you remove this, the rubber covering has a tiny hole for speaking. Using a pocket knife, I increased the size of this hole to about 1" and it seemed to work wonders. I still have the mic gain on 4 for it really gets out there now. Read more