This is easily my most favorite "CB" radio I've ever owned and puts radios like the Cobra 148 GTL to shame. To convert it to 10M and 11M mode all you have to do is pop the cover (speaker side) and solder over OP1 as a jumper. Of course for most people this would make them nervous enough to refrain from purchasing this radio. Indeed the Anytone 6666 allows export mode without any modification by simply pressing a special button combo, but the 5555n was a little cheaper on the pocket, doesn't consume as much amperage from a power supply, is a larger radio for people like me with big fumbly fingers and leaves room inside for expansion. Though honestly I'm not sure what you'd even want to add to it!
The radio comes packed with an all band 25.615MHz-30.105MHz in segments of A-J. Continuous tuning without having to switch band banks, band banks remember each frequency you last used on them, and every segment in the frequency count can be modified by pressing the tuner button and selecting either 100Hz, 1kHz, 10kHz, 100kHz, and 1MHz, so not only can you freeband you can literally pick out the frequency of transmit/receive down to 100Hz on the screen. SSB has both transmit and receive clarifying control too, but for CB use I stick to receive fine tune clarification.
Out of the box SSB is around 30W PEP, 12W carrier AM, and 30W FM. All the POTs inside are labeled so you can lower them if you want to run a linear, or a lower amperage power supply. You probably should not crank them up to get more power, the whole rig is ran on push pull MOSFETs already ran near limit, and if you want more talk power go with the Anytone 6666 anyway which tops out at 60 watts, but way more power than I feel is needed.
Variable RF output control on the front (from factory 2W to 12W AM, not sure about FM/SSB yet, but it deadkeys low if needed), RF gain, features stuff like roger beeps in 6 different tones to pick, echo which can be modified to get different effects by internal POTs, both of which I never use but neat they exist via a button press. Talkback built in too that can be disabled. I kind of like talkback because I am mic shy and like to hear my own voice as it sounds over air rather than just me hearing my own mouth.
Has programmable channels, and well I will stop here. The rig is PACKED to the brim with features. Some which I guarantee you won't even use.
Price? Got mine for around $240 on Amazon. It would have been cheaper but they tacked on a shipping fee if it arrived on time. I could not buy the Anytone 6666 at that time so I bit the bullet and went with the 5555n. I am glad I did.
You will want a beefy power supply for these rigs. Receive alone seems to pull half an amp, and transmit on lowest factory power at 2 watts is enough to shut down my 2 amp power supply. 5 amps is bare minimal for lowest to mid power RF output. You really want at least a 10 amp LINEAR power supply. Don't skimp and get a SMPS, they will introduce noise. No idea why these radios are so power hungry, but guessing there's a lot of digital ICs to run in there as you'll see from the hires photos below.
This thread will be about the 5555n modifications, hidden features, reviews and so on. This is all I have to post for now, just got the radio a few days ago so this thread will expand as I learn new things about it. You are welcome to share anything you know about it too, and even the 6666 if you want as they share similarities.
Here's a video of me listening to some late night skip on SSB, wasn't real active but gives a view of the radio. It looks small in the video, but trust me this is a big radio at 8" width, 2.5" tall, 10 1/2" depth (with back heat sink). Damn near like a small base station footprint. Also made a small metal protected in plastic screw on mic guard to keep the RJ45 jack from being yanked around. Figured that might become a weak spot so having extra relief is a good idea by having a mic cord gripper. Probably my biggest gripe about the radio is the idiotic mic jack, but you can buy RJ45 extension cords that work for Ethernet and they may work fine for the mic to extend length or protect the jack from wiggles.
This radio has been such a good performer so far I am blown away. Not shilling for the brand but it's tuned up well into my new antenna along with my old homemade one. Love the SWR foldback protection, actually came in use a few times when testing things. Only issue so far was my own stupidity that when in channel mode if I change the frequency it saves that frequency to the channel number within the "bands". While fine tuning my new antenna tonight I thought I was going nuts as some channels showed higher SWR than others right next to each other. Realized after freebanding in frequency mode after flipping from channel mode it saves a new frequency, so if you are on 19 at 27.185 and go up to 20 to test 27.205 and start tuning around on 20s bank you can change that whole channels frequency assignment to 25-30MHz, then I was wondering why my antenna was so out of whack by testing channel 20 lol. Wasted a few hours tonight taking my antenna lower to adjust the tuning rings to only realize late in the night my channel 20 CB was somewhere in the 28MHz ham band because I reprogrammed it by accident.
This should be a lesson to new users who purchase this. You can reset the channel banks to standard A-J (D CB band) by the reset menu option, but don't be a moron like me and wonder why everything got messed up only to find out it was your own fault. Thank God only a few button presses reset the channels to standard if you goof as a newb.
Lesson learned here, if I go from channel view to frequency view I will make sure I am on band A or J that I don't use, so that no matter what channel I reprogram by changing frequency in whatever steps I choose won't screw with band D (CB radio) or the surrounding ones my antenna is tuned to. I don't care if I screw up low 25MHz or high 30MHz, can always reset that lol. So yeah, keep in mind, this is the real deal export radio here, it can do the full thing, and you can get confused quick if not watching what buttons you press. But hey if you never use channeled mode, then NO PROBLEM. Just tune to whatever frequency you want at any time between 25-30MHz. Just be aware of how flipping between channel to frequency mode can reprogram a channel number by accident.
A better video compared to the last one too, I show off FM and SSB modes here hitting the ham bands, and then back to CB...
I used globaltuners.com (linked on the side of our forum) to find US based HF receivers and found two that were working but were 500-600 miles away from where I am located.
Just for giggles I used full power on FM mode and keyed up the mic while listening to the online SDR radio in CW mode not expecting much. About 5 seconds later I heard a tone come through my PC speakers. Thought.. no way a radio 500 miles away just picked me up, even though skip was pretty good that day. Tried again pressing the mic transmit button a few times, over the computer a few seconds later heard beep beep beeeeeep. Holy cow!
So I then tried SSB on both my radio and the online radio, talked into my mic on the unused frequency. Wouldn't you know it 5 or so seconds later I heard my voice come through the static on my computer fading in and out a bit!
So I made a contact to myself lol. But still a really cool way to test your CB radio when skip is strong to see if you're getting out. The 500 mile distance impressed me, and on SSB I was only using around 12 watts and it still came through clear enough to completely understand what I had transmitted seconds before! I tested with two online SDR radios around 100 miles apart, both picked me up well. One was using a dipole up 30' next to some AM broadcast tower, the other was using a skywave loop antenna. I of course am using the Tram vertical 18' antenna 20' up for my radio to transceive into.
These antennas the SDR radios online are using are wideband and not tuned for CB of course, so if they were picking me up that well out some 500 miles, that means someone with a proper CB antenna could probably have heard me much farther out and better!
Built a TX control box that does the functions of the microphone with (U)p (D)own and (T)ransmit. Wired a simple TRS 1/8 jack as microphone input bypassed by a 1uF capacitor since the radio itself puts around 3 volts DC on the mic pin to power an electret mic and I want to be able to pass my own normal audio to the radios mic input.
Pinout is as follows for those interested in the mic wiring... 8- .001 uF capacitor to ground pin (no idea why but the original mic has this) 7- Transmit 6- Microphone input and +3VDC for mic element 5- Ground 4 through 1 unused, you can ground all of these to 4 to better shield cheaper Cat 5 cable with RG45 connector as the mic cable
All built in an Altoids tin with mechanical keys from an old computer keyboard that feel nice to press and some iron weight added along with rubber bottom pads so it doesn't slide around on the desk in use.
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