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New Uniden Bearcat 680 CB Review

Installed in the Mobile

Today I installed the radio in my Jeep. For anyone familiar with Jeeps, you can appreciate the serious lack of room for radios. The Uniden 680 fits nicely in my chosen location which is right on top of the dash in the little tray. You can see in this picture where I placed it:

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I like how the depth of the radio is much shorter than many of the other CBs on the market. In this side view of the installation, you can see how much room it takes on the dash:
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Most other radios that I've installed in that location have the rear almost butting up against the windshield.

ANL/NB Works Good
While I've done a pretty good job over the years of reducing much of the noise generated by this Jeep, there is always a point at which you just need the radio's noise blanker to do its job. I still get a fair amount of ignition noise and I could hear it coming through the radio with the ANL/NB turned off. However, this radio's ANL/NB circuit just does a really good job at filtering it out.

After I finished installing the radio, I decided to go for a drive in the pouring rain. I really did appreciate the large display and knobs that let you see the channel and meter with just a quick glance. I also found that the preset LO/DX RF Gain settings work pretty well in a mobile. The skip was rolling really loud today, but putting the RF Gain in the Local mode resulted in a nice gain setting that helped pick out local stations and attenuate much of the distant ones.
 
Issues

So far, I've uncovered two issues with this radio during my testing:

1. When the squelch is turned all the way up to mute the incoming signal, there is still a low level white noise that is quite audible. It's not that noticeable in a mobile environment, however it's very obvious with an external speaker in a base station setup. It's actually a little annoying. This is a fairly minor issue, but I've never encountered a radio that exhibited this exact squelch behavior.

2. The second issue is a more serious one. In my mobile, I use a powered external Texas Ranger speaker. I use this speaker because the radio is very difficult to hear with the top off. When I use a powered speaker with the 680, I encounter what most people would call talk back....except the radio isn't supposed to have talk back. I don't hear the same thing when I plug in an unpowered external speaker. In my jeep, the "talk back" is quite loud and there is no way to get rid of it.

This has actually been a problem with certain Uniden CBs in the past; I had the same issue with a Uniden 520. With the 520, the feedback from the external speaker was so loud that I was unable to use a powered mic because it resulted in serious squeal. On that radio, I actually added a relay in the radio that would disengage the external speaker upon mic key to solve the problem. Doing something like that on this new radio might not be such a bad idea.

Hopefully the folks from Uniden will see this and can address both of these issues in a future update to the radio.
 
Ahhh Surface mount technology. No modulation pot.power pot. Guessing it will be set from the factory. Cant wait to see the 980. Would really look nice in my 2012 Sedona. Keep us posted UPman!!!!
 
Mobile Review Update

I've been using the radio around town on the various freeways for several weeks now. My overall impressions of this radio are that it makes a very fine AM mobile. The large display is fantastic, and the radio has enough volume that I really don't need a powered external speaker (my Jeep is very noisy). The NB/ANL works good. I find that the LO RF gain preset actually work nicely to help limit the DX stations when you want, and the DX button is nice for when you want to hear everything.

For a basic AM only radio, I really like this in my Jeep. I think this would probably be my new recommendation for anyone with a similar application to my own. However the feedback problem with the powered speaker is a real problem. I can't turn the volume up very loud and then transmit or I get feedback & squeal. I hope Uniden can figure out a solution to this problem. For reference, I've had many other CB radios in this exact location with the same speaker and have only ever had this problem with Uniden radios.
 
Here is the newest CB from Uniden, the Bearcat 680!

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This completely new CB was provided by Uniden, so here are some pictures of the radio while we're working on a full review. First, you can tell how small the width of the radio by comparing it to the full sized Uniden Grant LT:

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Notice that the height of the radio is similar to the LT, but the width is much smaller. The large height allows the display to be large and very visible.

Here is a side view of the 680 on top of the Grant LT. Notice how much shorter the new radio is, which is quite advantageous when trying to fit it into small vehicles:

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Here's a view from top comparing the over all width and depth differences between the 680 and the full size Grant LT:

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Next, some inside shots. Here is one of the final PA transistor and output filter. The radio uses the familiar 2078 transistor:

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Another, broader picture of the main board:

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A picture of the squelch and meter adjustment:

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Here is the back side of the front face circuit board:

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This picture shows the 6 pin mic connector. The #1 pin is in the 7 O'Clock position; the labels make it fairly obvious how to wire a different mic:

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The rear of the radio is like any other typical CB:

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This is the stock mic. It looks funny, but is very ergonomic:

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From the side, you can see that the mic has a lip guard which lets you feel how far away to hold the mic:

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I've hooked up the radio and made a few contacts, so next up: initial thoughts on the performance of the radio!
 
uniden used to be superior maker of radios but as they are now built in north viet nam and cannot be repaired. you can't buy the parts under any condition. a good friend and fellow amatuer radio operator brought me his new 980 and I cleaned up the signal for him but, I wouldn't have one as a gift they are great if all you want is a radio that works for a year then is trash. I bought 3 for parts that are 366 days old and uniden will not repair them or sell me the parts. I finally raised the number off the chips and with the aid of a friend in china got 100 of the chips they are an LSI chip made just for uniden, but you can buy anything in china.
 
So long as you don't go inside the 980 and monkey with it and have a decent antenna match, they work very well and live. Mess with either exception, and it is toast.

Not all parts from China are phony or poor. I still buy TA 7222AP audio IC's; good. Bought MB3756 regulators; good. That has been repeatable, as I've done this more than twice so far. Just no finals or drivers. ALL phony.
 

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