President McKinley AM/SSB CB Radio, 12/24V,40 Channel, NOAA Weather Alerts, Automatic SWR, ASC, Large LCD, NB, ANL, Hi-Cut Filters, VOX, Front Panel Loudspeaker, Clarifier, RF Power & Gain

This addition to my review is to document the performance of the replacement to the first radio shipped to me.As noted below, the first radio had some problems. I returned it, and ordered a replacement. The new radio works very well. Internal speaker sounds good and no spurious tone in audio. Power output and modulation are close to legal maximum, in both AM and SSB.Have made several contacts, every contact remarks on good sound of this radio. Just finished a 13.5 mile mobile contact on SSB; the other operator has decades of experience on the radio and commented that this President McKinley was one of the best sounding "out of the box" radios he's heard. I'm very pleased with this purchase, and highly recommend this radio.*** ORIGINAL REVIEW BELOW ***Nice radio with lots of good features. Unfortunately the radio delivered to me came with no internal speaker output, and had a spurious tone when receiving in AM mode.Very attractive, modern radio with a lot going for it. Installation was straightforward. The small size of this unit allows for many options for install. Unfortunately, upon power-up, no output from internal speaker. The external speaker output worked fine. Great reception, except a very low level tone, maybe around 1KHz or so, was present in AM receive. No problems noted during SSB reception. Power output and modulation was right up where it should be.I like this radio, and believe the problems I experienced with this individual unit are simply a random manufacturing defect. I have returned the defective radio, and will be ordering a replacement.

I purchased this cb to replace my trusty cobra 29 and have ssb capabilities.Things I like:Compact sizeReady to go out of the box. No need to peak and tune.SWR calibration processChannel changing micAbility to adjust power out of the boxScan featureWeatherThings I dislike:Having to key the mic to make some adjustmentsThe lack of a rf gain knob.6 pin mic connectorSomewhat noisyOverall I like the radio a lot. I found that you need to run the mic gain at about 80% or it distorts transmissions. Set up is super easy with the swr tone calibration. Don’t expect a ton of power, but the radio plain works. I’ve talked dx barefoot but you won’t get much attention unless conditions are in your favor or you add power. The radio has great “ears” for a mobile transceiver. The one thing I miss about my 29 is the rf gain knob. Sometimes you want to have it open and sometimes you only want to hear the other side of the highway and squelch alone doesn’t work as well as gain and squelch combined and the ability to easily make adjustments.One feature that I’m still on the fence about is the Automatic Squelch Control. It’s not quite perfect yet. There are times it works too good and other times it’s not good enough.Overall I really like the radio and I’m happy with its performance. I wish I could give it 4.5 stars as it more indicative of my opinion. The negatives aren’t deal breakers, hopefully they can be corrected in future editions.

Great radio not overly menu driven but still feature packed

Installed a Uniden PRO520XL a while back and decided I liked using CB enough to buy a better radio.I had a lot of issues with what I believe is alternator or spark plug noise on the cheap Uniden, the ANL on it cut the noise but also cut a lot of the signal along with it. The noise reduction features on the President seem to be a lot better at cutting the noise while still retaining a clear signal.Built in speaker is good quality. Gets loud enough without distorting. External probably would be better but I'll have this mounted close enough to me that I don't think I'll bother.Built in SWR meter is nice. Matches my external meters close enough and is always nice to have as just a final sanity check in any installation, or to just double check SWR occasionally.SSB also works well. I don't hear many people locally using it but was able to make a short contact from Texas to Georgia just running barefoot/stock power, center of the roof mounted ~50 inch antenna. Atmospheric conditions are obviously the main limitation but shows that this radio can get out there.