Cobra HH50WXST Handheld CB Radio - Emergency Radio with Access to Full 40 Channels and NOAA Alerts, Earphone Jack, 4 Watt Power Output, Noise Reduction and Dual Channel Monitoring, Black

I purchased this for a few reasons. I'm into radio, HAM, GMRS, SW, SDR and more. On a radio forum I am on, lot of people were talking about CB making a comeback. In fact it's been a longtime ongoing conversation and how it is making a comeback. I was on CB from about 1972 to the mid 1980's. I purchased this and a Uniden Pro401. I also purchased a Francis Hot Rod CB26 antenna, a better mount and set everything up properly on my truck. I used this and the Uniden on a 4000 mile round trip from Tennessee to Arizona. At home I have kept it plugged in and on and with one radio scanning and one radio on these were the results during the 4000+ mile round trip.I heard exactly one trucker and two women talk on the CB. The trucker long enough to get directions from a truck stop and two women who only made contact so one could let the other know to call her on her cell. And of course the illegal high power broadcasters out of Nevada that override everything on some channels (23).People on GMRS were broadcasting constantly to the point I had to turn off my GMRS radio. Unfortunately it appears Citizen Band is not making a comeback, from my experience, this radio is called a Road Trip and that is what I used it for, a 4000 mile road trip. If my experience is any indication whatsoever, no, CB is not making a comeback. The Airwaves are dead.As far as the radio itself, it is a good radio, solidly built, with batteries in has a nice weight to it, plenty of options and the weather channels work well although I can do the same real time weather on my Digital trunking Scanner or Cell phone.The radio itself gets five stars, the CB airwaves get zero because almost nobody is on it.Edit: We just had a major winter storm and received more snow and ice than we have in over three decades. The one day snowfall hasn't seen this accumulation since 1993. We are in the hills and mountains with a lot of trucks coming this direction to get to Knoxville, Chattanooga and further on up to Nashville. Listening to my scanners everything is extremely active with one emergency call after another around the clock. Thought I might turn on this CB to see if Channel 9 is active. Channel 9 (The emergency channel) is extremely active. We have had multiple jackknifed trucks, one rollover and one went off the mountain into the trees. Truckers are using Channel 9 like I have never heard it. We are in the mountains, everything is snow and ice and this is what they call, for us, a once every 25 year storm. so no one expected the conditions to be this bad and off the main highways nothing gets cleared, it has to melt, because we don't budget for storms that only happen once every 20-30 years. so yes the CB is being used heavily to get help on Channel 9.For normal day to day use, the airwaves are dead. But now, under extreme weather conditions, the truckers are definitely using it and so are some of the people stuck in their homes up on the mountain and plateau.

Works well with the external antenna on the roof of my van. The rubber ducky antenna is not going to have very good signal because it's inside the vehicle. And the radio will output at 4 Watts whenever it's plugged in but it's not as powerful when it's running on battery power (sometimes). It depends on what kind of batteries you are using and how much of a charge you have left in them. The display on the radio will let you know how many Watts you are putting out. This radio outputs 4 Watts max which is standard for all legal CB radios. This is a smaller and easier to use alternative to a mounted CB radio system. Don't think that your radio doesn't work just because you don't hear anything on the CB radio because sometimes,not a lot of people are using the radio, so there is nothing to here anyway. Also make sure your squelch is not too hight. The NOAA weather works well with both antennas. Also if you have extra cord for the external antenna, do not loop it in a circle. Loop it in a figure-eight. Looping excess chord in a circle can mess with the signal coming in. I put 9 EBL nickel metal hydride "NI-MH" AA batteries in the radio and I'm surprised how long the batteries are lasting. I generally will have them last for a couple of months before needing to recharge them. However most of the time I can just use the radio plugged in anyway. The magnetic antenna fits very securely to metal roof of the vehicle so even if your roof is slightly curved you won't have to worry about the antenna getting blown off at highway speeds. I do wish the cord coming from the antenna was a couple feet longer though. The radio is built well and the plastic feels relatively strong. Buttons are easy to feel and easy to push and there is a backlight button so you can see your screen at night. All and all I'm very happy with this radio. It was exactly what I wanted and is a great money and time saving alternative to mounting a CB radio and antenna, and then wiring them all together, and then buying a antenna tuner too tune the antenna, assuming you know how to do that, and, well, you get the point. By the way this is VERY IMPORTANT; do NOT ever start your vehicle with the radio plugged in and turned on! The sudden drop in voltage can damage the radio. I almost broke mine doing that. To fix it, I unplugged the radio, took out the batteries, and let it sit there in the turned on position for about 30 seconds. (a standard procedure used when repairing computers). Luckily I was able to get the radio working again! Now if you want your radio to transmit further, you can buy a long, tunable antenna and tune it to your radio. The how to videos talking about that are on YouTube if your interested. So in summary, get yourself a CB radio and open up a whole new world on the highways, or you can just use it to talk to your spotter when off-roading, either one.

For what it's worth, while this is perfectly adequate for a handheld CB radio, it does NOT handle automated NOAA weather radio alerts, contrary to the product description. It merely receives NOAA weather radio broadcasts.