This radio grabbed me by surprise when I was getting back into CB radio a short while back. Costs about $60 on the Amazons and covers 10 through 12 meters channelized by the usual 40 channel segments A through J and allows 0 frequency offsets along with the normal 5 by a simple pressing of RFG and holding it in for 3 seconds. *E channel banks = 5 like 27.185MHz, *P channel banks = 0 like 27.180MHz (channel 19 normal CB on dE group). This means the radio covers a full 25.615MHz to 30.105 through its interface. *This does require an internal modification, but a simple one.
Biggest drawback is changing channel banks requires you to hold the front "A/F" button upon power off/on to change between the aE and Le banks. Weirder yet the AE bE CE dE EE FE 9E HE IE LE (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J respectively) channels are weird looking because 9E is actually gE and LE is actually jE (I'll bet backwards lol), weird issue with the LCD screen or manufacture, but it's fairly easy to remember when pressing the microphone buttons to change banks. Most people will be on dE (Same as export radios Band D, this radio covers ALL of the export bands, and zero offesets) anyways which is the usual 26.965-27.405 CB segment in the US, but if you want to cover any of the expanded bands ALONG with the 12 meter and 10 meter ham band all it takes is opening up the hood of the radio and soldering OP1 and desoldering OP2. It's stupid simple if you're not afraid of SMD soldering. There are a few other OP1/OP2 combinations that set the radio up for other types of channelization as shown here.. reverendbow.wordpress.com/tag/anytone-smart-cb/
Personally I see no reason to limit what the radio can do and say open it wide up to full coverage. It can handle it easily and shows no strain across the spectrum it can cover into a dummy load. In fact there is a person on youtube who has reviewed this radio using proper lab equipment that has proved it not only holds up to specs but is actually better than listed from the manufacture...
As others have said, this is a CB radio operators Ham radio, or rather a serious Ham radio that is stupid easy to convert to CB and keep within legal limits outside of the Part 95 acceptance. Shhhh... don't tell anyone or mod these for others, lets keep it a secret.
It's up to you to play legally and only use this radio on the ham bands licensed. If you are going to use it on CB make sure to use low power mode by pressing RFG and the mic PTT button at the same time while turning it on and select Pl (power low) which is <4 watts. The radio saves your settings. Doing the same button combo to select PH selects 8 watts, only legal on the ham bands and licensed. The high power mode is really only useful for FM use anyways outside of the US. To get the carrier to even come close to fully modulating with 8 watts requires the VCC voltage to come up beyond the specified limits the manual says is acceptable (13.2 volts), but at 4 watts there is plenty of headroom for 100% modulation if not more. The question is how does it handle negative peaks, hard to tell without a schematic.
Stock my radio came at a bit less than 3 watts on low power, 7 watts high power. I suspect it's because I was feeding it EXACTLY 13.2vdc as the instructions say. When bumping up the dc voltage input to 13.8v like many power supplies I was able to get closer to 8 watts high power and the 3.5-3.7 watts low. There is three potentiometers inside the radio while facing you dial and LCD screen.farthest left is FM deviation. I found increasing this like the link and author above did give me closer to 4-5kHz deviation while testing and eyeballing it via an SDR radio and software making sure not to deviate to distortion with 4.5 or so kHz to each side. I don't use FM though so this was just for testing or future Amateur radio use. With AM mode I increased the modulation pot top part with front facing you to max and RF pot below it to max. This sets the low power only to a max of 4 watts or so with 100% modulation, possibly more. There is a reason the potentiometer cuts out when turning it too far, it has a gap in the actual part itself where it goes from max to minimum. So adjust to maximum right before it cuts off, back off a bit so you're not in the gap where it makes no resistance.
This radio is simply incredible for its size. I have yet to find anything with the specs that come close for both receive and transmit in this size category and price range. Making local contacts on my End Fed Dipole Antenna on my tower was no issue. I'm sure 10 miles wouldn't surprise me at all with the power set to low and the RFG (RF gain) at -6 or higher DB. In fact When RFG is set to off I get a steady s3 on the S-meter. No my antenna is not noisy, it's just got such a hot RF front end inside this little beast that RF reduction can actually be useful.
On an odd note, if you press both the microphones + and - buttons the radio transmits. I suspect this is why the mic can get away with 4 wires and still include the channel up/down buttons. I think the channel buttons work by being on resistors whereas the PTT button is a straight short. It looks that way internally but I haven't tested yet.
Modifications for this radio seem to be heavier across the pond. They seem to be doing some neat things over there, including replacing the microphone cord hole with a rotory encoder for channel selection. Where they run the new mic cord out of is anyones guess. I'd like to do this myself eventually considering the hole is perfect for a $3 part special to jog dial channels rather than have to hold down the microphone +/- buttons. It's a really good scanning radio when you disable squelch in the menu and just hold + or - until you hit something interesting, otherwise with squelch on there is a mute between channels that gets annoying.
Final note for now... EXTERNAL SPEAKER! This radio sounds FANTASTIC with an external speaker. I was a bit disappointed with the internal one because it sounded hollow and made the roaring static overcome voice sometimes, so I got creative and took an old set of computer speakers, cut the cord from the amplified speaker side and soldered it into the other speaker, plugged it into the CB Spk. Out and WOW! This thing sounds like the classic radios I love most. Wide open bandwidth from 300hz to 3kHz communications level, not your average CB junk, just straight out easy to copy and hear distant operators. Reminded me of some big old tube radios, for something the size of a pack and a half of smokes! Amazing.
I will post more about this little beast later when I discover new things. For now here are some pics...
Penny for size while sitting on my old Teaberry Five by Five (normal size) mobile radio..
Explains itself next to the Baufeng uv5 and Bic lighter..
Inside after the mod. Soldered OP1, desoldered OP2 to give it full band range (export mode)...
One huge disappointment with this radio I forgot to mention is it's lack of capable CW. When the mic PTT is pressed it takes a short, around half a second or slightly more, for it to kick on the TX. This is acceptable for voice communications if you remember to not key the mic instantly and start yapping, but for those that are trigger happy and in a rush to get their words out it will cut off your voice if you don't wait for it to go from RX to TX. I haven't timed how long this is, but it seem to be shorter than a second, but just fast enough that it will cut off your first word if you can't wait. It would still work for Modulated CW with a slight beginning delay though, and technically that is legal on CB in the US. Just need a separate receiver or a BFO.
New quark I learned about this radio, if you hit any of the front panel buttons and press PTT right after in a split second it goes into transmit and holds transmit on even with the PTT button depressed until you press it again. If you hit the buttons in the right timing this could be useful as a glitch to hold PTT down for tests so you don't need to hold the mic itself. Not sure yet but this may be a clue as to how the panel buttons work and control chip for them. My guess is with the right timing and PTT or other button combo it accesses a variety of menu options. As found out by the channel up/down being on the PTT line with simple resistors to select up/down, makes me wonder if other face button features are accessible through the mic cable given a certain sequence of pull up or down plus resistor combos. I can only wish, and hopefully one day someone will find a schematic for this radio. Finding its glitches in the meantime will show us hidden features.
There is also this I found..
A swing modification for the radio. I have not tried this nor trust it but if you are willing to try let me know how it goes. It makes sense looking at the board, removing the AMC circuit by lifting the transistors leg and then adding a diode which I expect drives up voltage on audio swing. The first mod alone to remove the built in limiter could be of a lot of use if you use outboard compression/limiting. I am not a fan of driving more than %100 modulation as I like symmetrical clarity, but a good place to play with on the board to find more hidden secrets.
There is a person out there who mods these radios in the UK that has figured out how to add a rotary channel control where the mic jack is, and run the mic cord to the back with an external 4 pin jack so you can connect other mics like the popular Motorolas. He's asking for money to do these mods, which is understandable but I plan on releasing some information I learned recently to make your own rotary control channel selector using nothing more than some basic logic glue, a 4066 digital switch and a 4013 D flip-flop. It's not as small as his idea using a microcontroller, but it works the same and can be mounted into a base microphone or external box so you can change channels using a rotary control instead of the microphone UP/DOWN, and with a bit of ingenuity you can add your own mic jack and take this little radio to base station level. I'll post more on that soon enough. It's really quite simple for those who know there way around soldering simple circuits, and best of all you can do it external to the radio if you want so not to ruin the SMD tiny shit inside.
What needs to be learned here is that pressing both channel UP/DOWN = TX, Up button to ground is 4.7K ohm, Down is 2.2K ohm. Pressing PTT after pressing any panel button leads to PTT being keyed down until you press PTT again. Internal microphone in the mic has 6-8 volts running to it, it's an electret type. Only three wires on the mic cable are in use, the fourth blue wire is going to nothing and can be used for mods in both directions. Take a dremmel tool to the microphone to widen out the blockage internally and widen the outside hole for louder modulation. Turn up internal potentiometer for modulation and RF output on low RF setting to get to 4.5-5 watts so you can get up to 20+ watts PEP. Cut microphone cord 3-4" from radio and solder on a male and female end to the mic and radio so you can use alternative microphones. Use spare unused mic cord wire for whatever you want, can be used for 13.8v to an amplified mic, or be tied to some control on the front panel for easier button access when grabbing the mic (like squelch). For high power FM up to 20+ watts short out the internal modulation transistor collector and emitter legs, or add switch to flip from FM only to AM/FM use. Finally connect an external speaker of any kind, a tone control helps greatly for DXing.
Post by HighMountainRadio on Mar 3, 2018 9:20:13 GMT -6
Hey Kage !
Thanks for uploading all of the info on this great little rig ! I too would love it 100% more if it had a CW mode as that is my preferred mode choice over all for comms. I was wondering if you performed the OP1 and OP2 mod to open it up from 25.615 to 30.105 ? Is the AM/FM mode fully selectable throughout this entire frequency spread or does it automatically switch AM/FM modes depending on what frequency happens to be selected ? Can you force a particular mode AM or FM if the rig autoselects AM/FM mode depending on what frequency it is set for ? I just bought one of these and was considering doing the OP 1/2 mod to open the coverage up completely. What is your opinion of the rig after having had your's for a while now ?
73... Spooky...
"Knowledge Is Always Made More Valuable By Sharing It With Others !" Always Remember To Be Kind ! True Greatness Often Has Very Humble Beginnings ! Help A Kid Out Today ! *** High Mountain Radio *** "Broadcasting From Somewhere High In The Remote Appalachian Mountains"
I have one of these due in today. Real anxious to see your rotary encoder mod when you post it. With a rotary encoder where the mic currently exits the front panel and a "normal" mic jac coming out the back, this would be the ultimate little rig.
I have one of these due in today. Real anxious to see your rotary encoder mod when you post it. With a rotary encoder where the mic currently exits the front panel and a "normal" mic jac coming out the back, this would be the ultimate little rig.
Smac
I never got around to building up the rotary encoder circuit, though it was simple enough I don't have the SMD parts or skills to make something small enough to fit inside the radio. I did get a working circuit with through hole ICs though after ordering some rotary encoders off amazon and considered making an external mic box with the rotary dial and a jack to plug in a different mic which I still might do some time.
The issue with the rotary encoder I found is that the radio itself can only up/down channels so fast, basically at the max speed as holding the channel up/down button, so if you make the encoder circuit it can only be spun as fast as that, any faster and it won't register faster which makes the original up and down buttons basically as useful as a spin dial. In the end I just stuck with the basic up and down buttons. Good thing is replacing the mic itself is fairly easy, just needs an amplified mic and a capacitor in series with the mic input since the radio also provides phantom power to the mic for a electret type mic element. It should work with almost any decent amplified mic including the nice Motorola ones.
Anyways after owning this radio since my original post here about it I am still very satisfied with it. It's my main 11 meter radio actually since I rarely use SSB and more of an AM guy. I've even found another person to test it out on FM with and it kicks butt on that mode too, but AM is where it's king and it can definitely modulate good if the mic gain is cranked up internally and set to around 5 watts. Don't be tempted to use high power mode though, it won't modulate fully at 8 watts and the extra few watts won't be noticed by anyone on their S meters anyways. If I can find where I jotted down the schematic for my rotary encoder circuit I will upload it ASAP. I forgot all about it
The circuit was basically like this.. i.stack.imgur.com/qfzhJ.png The NAND gates outputs I ran to a CD4066 bilateral switch IC (easy to find part) to digitally hold down the 4.7k or 2.2k ohm resistors to channel select through the mic cord. It needed some debounce capacitors somewhere in the circuit as I recall but I got it working with little modification as I recall. With SMD parts and a small enough rotary encoder switch it would be possible to fit it all in the radio. Someone else online accomplished it with a microcontroller IC instead of the old logic IC method I used which saves even more space. Wish someone sold a mod kit online for this, I know I would if I had the means.
So, I found a quadrature clock converter chip, LS7183N, that would make this a breeze to accomplish. Got 2 of them in now and an encoder from Adafruit. I'll let you know when I get it built up.
Post by sandman614 on Apr 15, 2019 20:47:55 GMT -6
One thing I've noticed with this radio is that it picks up noise from my amplifier(subwoofer) as static bass beats, the weirder part is it's not always on the same channel(it floats). I've done some testing, moved cables, new antenna and wire, moved antenna, power wires straight to the battery, moved the power to a seperate battery beside my truck.. Everything seems to point to the amp being a bit dirty in terms of RF noise and the cb antenna picking it up. Do you guys have any recommendations on how I could block it on the CB/antenna side or better yet how to clean it up on the amp side.
One thing I've noticed with this radio is that it picks up noise from my amplifier(subwoofer) as static bass beats, the weirder part is it's not always on the same channel(it floats). I've done some testing, moved cables, new antenna and wire, moved antenna, power wires straight to the battery, moved the power to a seperate battery beside my truck.. Everything seems to point to the amp being a bit dirty in terms of RF noise and the cb antenna picking it up. Do you guys have any recommendations on how I could block it on the CB/antenna side or better yet how to clean it up on the amp side.
First guess is to look at your car amp. Maybe a single snap on ferrite choke over both positive/negative power input to the amp? A few wraps of both wires through one might do the trick. I doubt your radio is at fault. These little radios actually come within some of the better noise rejection specs I've seen so any other radio would probably pick up the noise too. I'd check all the speaker connections too and make sure everything is solid, even the flat clip connectors right to the speaker itself inside the box or interior. Even the slightest arcing on a subwoofer connection may not be noticed on the audio side but will cause a ton of noise on nearby radios. Other than that I can only imagine grounding issues need to be looked into or maybe the amplifier itself is just sour with FCC certifications. Large car amps do have built in switching power supplies to take the 12VDC up to the level needed and those can be real noisy!
Thanks for uploading all of the info on this great little rig ! I too would love it 100% more if it had a CW mode as that is my preferred mode choice over all for comms. I was wondering if you performed the OP1 and OP2 mod to open it up from 25.615 to 30.105 ? Is the AM/FM mode fully selectable throughout this entire frequency spread or does it automatically switch AM/FM modes depending on what frequency happens to be selected ? Can you force a particular mode AM or FM if the rig autoselects AM/FM mode depending on what frequency it is set for ? I just bought one of these and was considering doing the OP 1/2 mod to open the coverage up completely. What is your opinion of the rig after having had your's for a while now ?
73... Spooky...
I'm so sorry I forgot all about replying to this post of yours. Looking at a current youtube video on the radio made me come back to review the old posts here. Yeah the AM/FM and power are fully capable across the full range the radio can do. There is no limit. This radio is basically a little mini HF rig made for amateur radio operators that just happens to work great on CB, but has full capabilities enabled upon soldering the right OP jumper. Every feature is available across all frequencies it's capable of. Only thing it can't do is CW because of the millisecond mic PTT delay getting in the way.
So I finally pulled the trigger and ordered one of these. My wife gave me an Amazon gift card, and that was just the impetus I needed to go for it. I plan to do the mod, then put it in my Jeep to use on 10M AM and FM as well as CB. I know it doesn't do repeater offsets, but that's ok. I have other bands for repeater work.
I wish the manufacturer of these radios would make a version with SSB modes. I have heard from others that the manufacturer has been asked & claim it can't be done in this size of chassis. That's just complete nonsense as there have been several handheld cb radios manufactured with AM / FM / SSB & their chassis was half the size of these radios. I owned a Cherokee AH-100 that had AM / SSB but it only put out 4 watts on AM & 7 watts on SSB. Being that I've seen hi power mods for these new compact radios like the AE-6110 I see no reason that they could not produce a model with SSB as well that would be made to do 4 watts on AM & FM & 12 watts on SSB mode. All that would be required is the additional internal components to produce the SSB signal & then replace the front mounted rotary switch which in now for power & volume & replace it with a dual ganged switch like older Cobra's had so the outer knob would be the clarifier for SSB & the inner knob would push for power & adjust volume when rotated. I can only hope this happens some day as I have a tiny car ( Hyundai Accent ) & have no place to mount a full size ssb cb radio & being that there are lots of people using ssb in my city & the dxing is all on ssb here, I really want a super compact radio with ssb modes.
Here's a list of super small handheld cb radios that has SSB mode as well.
Only a few of them would produce 4 watts on AM & 7 watts on SSB but for the size I would not expect more. This also proves my point that there is no reason that SSB cannot be made available in the Anytone Smart / Albrecht AE-6110 / or the other clones out there. And these units should have no problem producing 4 watts on AM & FM & 12 watts on SSB.
Here's the list:
Albrecht AE2990 Albrecht AE-201S Dragon SS-201 Eagle Spitfire 545 Intek SS-201 Magnum 1012 Titan Road-pro RPSY-201
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