Which newer radios have the best receive?

[Lkaskel]

If anyone keeps track (I actually hope you do not) I've been asking a lot of RCI/Galaxy radio questions recently. I am finding that my local radio community mainly uses these radios and they keep getting more of them. While I do not talk on air very often due to the lack of free time I did pick up an older (Gen 2 or 3) 2950 and aligned it to use. I was curious what the draw is. In my area most ops talk on the standard 40 99% of the time. Over the past 6 months or so I've come to the conclusion that the RCI/Galaxy radios seem to have a harsher receive quality and even though I have tried to affect it with minor tweaks in the alignment thet truth is I find that it is just the nature of their design. No knock on them but just an observation. Last night some operators were on 36LSB and I had a moment. I jumped on the 2950 and talked for a fe minutes and thought "why am I doing this to myself"? I grabbed my Robyn 520D off the shelf and hooked it up. Holy Smokes!!!!! The receive was sooo quiet but very sensitive. Not that it matters but the folks I was talking with said they thought the Robyn sounded better on air as well. I know that most radio sales happen due to a ton of features or output power but NEVER receive quality. It made me think, what radios made in the last 5-10 years have the best receive? What is your opinion? Of course, I am not including any HF rigs as they obviously should have great receive so lets not include any Kenwoods, Yaesu, Icom's in the response.

Thanks!!!

 

[unit_399]

The Robyn 520D is one of several variants of the legendary 858SSb chassis. The best CB radio chassis ever made (my opinion) in all respects: transmit, receive, audio, part and build quality. It's no wonder your contacts were impressed.

J.J. 399

 

[Shadetree Mechanic]

There was a tech note from a Galaxy tech that I found a while back. Basically, one of the stages has two fets in parallel and makes a lot of static in the receive. The solution is to detune L8 to drop the noise floor. On a Ranger it might not be L8, but you want the can that goes into the double fet.

Also, the latest Anytones and it's variants have a noise reduction feature, basically dsp filtering and is a game changer. You can buy a 5555n2 for about the same price as a West Mountain dsp speaker.

 

[BC Coyote]

Hands down the Anytone 5555Nii has the best receive of any modern rig I've used, with two cons that I'll get to in a moment.

In terms of selectivity and sensitivity the 5555Nii beats my Icom 735, Kenwood 140S, Cobra 148GTL, and TRC-449 (with an 858 chassis, sorry JJ!). All of those radios have fantastic receive capabilities and I was REALLY surprised at how good the Anytone was. I had heard pre-purchase that it was good, but I couldn't believe how good it was!
As mentioned above by Shadetree, the noise reduction works really well.......at a setting of 1 or 2, more than that makes the sound overly metallic.

I actually bought the Anytone as a backup radio but it very quickly became my primary rig, mostly due to receive performance.

The two cons? It would benefit from tighter filters on SSB. Adjacent channel splatter is more prevalent on the Anytone than I would like.
And the NB sucks when the band is filled with strong signals.........actually increasing noise instead of decreasing it!! It does work properly under no-skip or low signal conditions.

As far as Ranger goes, the only ones I ever owned were a first edition 2950 and a very early 2970. Horrible noisy receive on both of them. The 2970 was especially bad and I had to run RF gain at 60% all the time to make it bearable. Yuck. YMMV

 

[unit_399]

In terms of selectivity and sensitivity the 5555Nii beats my Icom 735, Kenwood 140S, Cobra 148GTL, and TRC-449 (with an 858 chassis, sorry JJ!). All of those radios have fantastic receive capabilities and I was REALLY surprised at how good the Anytone was

No apology necessary . I have had no hands-on experience with the 5555NII. My quad6 PRO is so new to me that I haven't worked out the settings to max the receive. Given time I'm sure I will. My 139XLR has several mods that improved the receive, so it's not a stock rig.

J.J.

 

[Lkaskel]

No apology necessary . I have had no hands-on experience with the 5555NII. My quad6 PRO is so new to me that I haven't worked out the settings to max the receive. Given time I'm sure I will. My 139XLR has several mods that improved the receive, so it's not a stock rig.

J.J.

Are those receive mods the ones you reference in your 858 doocument?

 

[unit_399]

yes, those and a couple of others

 

[TM86]

yes, those and a couple of others

Been holding out on us?

 

[unit_399]

Been holding out on us?

LOL. Just haven't had the time to add them to the site. Will try to add them this next week.
J.J.

 

[VaHam]

The noisy (white noise) RX in the Chinese made radios (Anytone based mostly) have been horrible. I went through a few model variants and dumped them all. They are fixable but no one bothered. They just throw that board in a new case. BUT, along came the Stryker SR-955HPC+. Stryker really did some serious work to the firmware side. That radio seems to be the best so far of the new exports. I'm testing one now. One exception is the Uniden 858 chassis of the 1970's. Those are still at the top of the list. A worthy restoration. Thank goodness for Unit 399 here!

 

[BC Coyote]

along came the Stryker SR-955HPC+

You do realize that radio is internally identical to the Anytone 5555Nii right?!?!?!
There are only very minor differences in the firmware.

So, the Anytones are horrible but the Stryker is excellent.....even though they are the same inside? OK......gotcha.

 

[VaHam]

BC, Clearly I do know they use the same HARDWARE board. I compared so many side by side. I thought that was clear? The BIG difference is the magic Stryker did in the firmware, it was not minor. Software/firmware mod is the future. You say the Stryker is excellent? OK, but I didn't say that. I only said it was the BEST of the exports right now. No 10/11 meter RX will compete to my Flex or Yaesu FTdx101; but the cost prevents fair comparison.

 

[Shadetree Mechanic]

BC, Clearly I do know they use the same HARDWARE board. I compared so many side by side. I thought that was clear? The BIG difference is the magic Stryker did in the firmware, it was not minor. Software/firmware mod is the future. You say the Stryker is excellent? OK, but I didn't say that. I only said it was the BEST of the exports right now. No 10/11 meter RX will compete to my Flex or Yaesu FTdx101; but the cost prevents fair comparison.

You should check out the Anytone 6666PRO.

 

[SuperLid]

If anyone keeps track (I actually hope you do not) I've been asking a lot of RCI/Galaxy radio questions recently. I am finding that my local radio community mainly uses these radios and they keep getting more of them. While I do not talk on air very often due to the lack of free time I did pick up an older (Gen 2 or 3) 2950 and aligned it to use. I was curious what the draw is. In my area most ops talk on the standard 40 99% of the time. Over the past 6 months or so I've come to the conclusion that the RCI/Galaxy radios seem to have a harsher receive quality and even though I have tried to affect it with minor tweaks in the alignment thet truth is I find that it is just the nature of their design. No knock on them but just an observation. Last night some operators were on 36LSB and I had a moment. I jumped on the 2950 and talked for a fe minutes and thought "why am I doing this to myself"? I grabbed my Robyn 520D off the shelf and hooked it up. Holy Smokes!!!!! The receive was sooo quiet but very sensitive. Not that it matters but the folks I was talking with said they thought the Robyn sounded better on air as well. I know that most radio sales happen due to a ton of features or output power but NEVER receive quality. It made me think, what radios made in the last 5-10 years have the best receive? What is your opinion? Of course, I am not including any HF rigs as they obviously should have great receive so lets not include any Kenwoods, Yaesu, Icom's in the response.

Thanks!!!

Simple answer really. As long as it is not made by Ranger, it is probably good.

 

[VaHam]

You should check out the Anytone 6666PRO.

I had one of those too just before the Stryker. Excellent radio. Nice with the 15 meter mod.