PreachaMan
Well-Known Member
The worst of the worst
Ive had some bad ones lol heres a good paragraph i typed a year ago on bad radios
Everything is subjective and opinions always will differ. But certain products over the years have come to be known as the real lemons in their specific industry. Forbes magazine once did an article about the worst cars of all time, and the results came up with great autos such as the AMC Pacer, the Ford Pinto, and the Yugo.
The reason that a product such as a car or CB radio is rated as the “worst” isn’t necessarily because it didn’t work, but because in general and on a large scale it didn’t work well. I’m sure there were some perfectly happy Yugo owners out there, but overall the car was definitely known as a lemon.
With CB radios it’s a little more difficult to describe a lemon. Of course the easy way to describe a lemon would be a brand new radio that wouldn’t even power up after you installed it. But with CB radios this is pretty rare. Most radios come from the factory pre-tested and will power up and transmit and receive, so the question really isn’t “if” it works, but how well it works.
Of course you have to take the antenna being used into consideration before really accusing your radio of being a lemon. You could have the most reliable and hard working radio ever made but if you are using a thru-glass CB antenna from radio shack you can’t really give your radio a fair review.
Over the years I’ve seen a lot of very poorly made CB radios, especially in the early 80’s when it seemed like every company that could was pumping out their own version of the CB.
When you’re talking about the worst CB radios you’re going to find that the ones making the list were usually the cheap models, which in a way mirrors the automotive industry. Everyone is always striving to produce the cheapest item that will still perform to some sort of relative standard because the American public just loves a good deal. But to produce a cheap item you have to cut costs and that’s where the problems start.
A great example of these cheap radios was the Kraco CCB-4007C.
It was small which I guess was a plus, but everything else about it was just worthless. The radio had the LED signal meter which would glow three out of four bars whenever the vehicle was running. It included the “sliding” volume and squelch controls which would make a static noise when they were moved back and forth. These sliding controls were one of the worst inventions ever used on any CB radio in my opinion. Commonly within a couple of months their sensitivity would begin to fade and the tips of the controls would inevitably fall off. Now the Kraco CB did receive other signals and people could understand me when I transmitted, but that’s not saying much.
I mention this radio because there were probably 20-30 similar models produced in the 80’s and 90’s which copied the small minimalist style of this radio. Many also used the slide controls and the 5 pin din style microphone connection. All of these radios worked in some respect, but they really were not finer pieces of machinery. Radio shack produced a bunch of the small and simple radios which were known for being pieces of junk. On eBay these days you’ll see any number of these small cheaply made CB radios selling for less than $10. And I guess that for a $10 radio you could do worse, especially if you’re talking about what is often considered the worst CB of them all, the Cobra 18 WX ST.
Cobra is well known for its quality radios such as the Cobra 25 LTD and 29 LTD Classic and the all time favorite 148 GTL. But when people started making low quality and cheap radios Cobra did the same. The Cobra 18 WX ST was a perfect example of this trend.
The first time I saw this radio I actually thought it looked pretty cool. It incorporated the front facing speaker which was a feature that many people had sought after for years in a radio. (To this day there have only ever been a couple radios produced that had the front facing speaker.) It had the basic controls, Volume, Squelch, Ch 9 priority button but also included weather station capabilities. The most advertised feature of this radio was Cobra’s Sound Tracker system which could be activated by simply pressing a button.
In my first experience owning this radio I found that the radio itself did work….barely.
The receive ability of this radio was about half that of my other radio at the time, a Uniden PC122. The sound tracker function when activated resulted in a noticable decrease in noise, but the problem was that it decreased both the incoming signal and the background static. The transmission output was about 3 watts with 1 watt of forward swing from a whistle with the stock microphone and even less with normal speech. I sold the radio a day later.
A couple of years passed and I had the chance to buy another one of these at a very low cost and I figured that I’d give it another chance thinking that maybe the first one was just a bad apple.
The second radio displayed the exact same characteristic of the first one. Low receive, low output wattage and a very low level of modulation. This time around I added a power microphone and the output of the radio was 3 watts swinging to 5 watts with modulation.
I did a number of on air reports with this radio and even with the power microphone people told me continuously to turn up my mic gain as the radio transmitted a very soft signal and I was having trouble being heard. I opened up the radio looking for any internal adjustment pots for modulation or output power and there were none to be found.
I thought maybe my experiences with this radio just happened to be bad luck, but after a little digging I knew I wasn’t alone.
When I asked for other people’s input on the Cobra 18 this is what they had to say -
“….the Cobra 18...Biggest piece of junk I hate to admit ever owning”
“…I also have two dead cobra 18's somewhere. I HATE THEM! "
“…The cobra 18 was the biggest piece of cow dung I ever owned!!”
The Cobra 18 WX ST is a lemon. Especially since it originally retailed at $79.95. For the price this radio was definitely not worth buying.
Now I’m sure people have had worse radio experiences, and I’ve heard the many complaints about the Mirage and Northpoint brands. But overall I’ve heard more bad reviews from more people about this particular radio than any other.
Cobra as a corporation has produced some of the finest radios around, but this was not one of them.
And so the Cobra 18 WX ST gets my vote as the worst CB radio.
Ive had some bad ones lol heres a good paragraph i typed a year ago on bad radios
Everything is subjective and opinions always will differ. But certain products over the years have come to be known as the real lemons in their specific industry. Forbes magazine once did an article about the worst cars of all time, and the results came up with great autos such as the AMC Pacer, the Ford Pinto, and the Yugo.
The reason that a product such as a car or CB radio is rated as the “worst” isn’t necessarily because it didn’t work, but because in general and on a large scale it didn’t work well. I’m sure there were some perfectly happy Yugo owners out there, but overall the car was definitely known as a lemon.
With CB radios it’s a little more difficult to describe a lemon. Of course the easy way to describe a lemon would be a brand new radio that wouldn’t even power up after you installed it. But with CB radios this is pretty rare. Most radios come from the factory pre-tested and will power up and transmit and receive, so the question really isn’t “if” it works, but how well it works.
Of course you have to take the antenna being used into consideration before really accusing your radio of being a lemon. You could have the most reliable and hard working radio ever made but if you are using a thru-glass CB antenna from radio shack you can’t really give your radio a fair review.
Over the years I’ve seen a lot of very poorly made CB radios, especially in the early 80’s when it seemed like every company that could was pumping out their own version of the CB.
When you’re talking about the worst CB radios you’re going to find that the ones making the list were usually the cheap models, which in a way mirrors the automotive industry. Everyone is always striving to produce the cheapest item that will still perform to some sort of relative standard because the American public just loves a good deal. But to produce a cheap item you have to cut costs and that’s where the problems start.
A great example of these cheap radios was the Kraco CCB-4007C.
It was small which I guess was a plus, but everything else about it was just worthless. The radio had the LED signal meter which would glow three out of four bars whenever the vehicle was running. It included the “sliding” volume and squelch controls which would make a static noise when they were moved back and forth. These sliding controls were one of the worst inventions ever used on any CB radio in my opinion. Commonly within a couple of months their sensitivity would begin to fade and the tips of the controls would inevitably fall off. Now the Kraco CB did receive other signals and people could understand me when I transmitted, but that’s not saying much.
I mention this radio because there were probably 20-30 similar models produced in the 80’s and 90’s which copied the small minimalist style of this radio. Many also used the slide controls and the 5 pin din style microphone connection. All of these radios worked in some respect, but they really were not finer pieces of machinery. Radio shack produced a bunch of the small and simple radios which were known for being pieces of junk. On eBay these days you’ll see any number of these small cheaply made CB radios selling for less than $10. And I guess that for a $10 radio you could do worse, especially if you’re talking about what is often considered the worst CB of them all, the Cobra 18 WX ST.
Cobra is well known for its quality radios such as the Cobra 25 LTD and 29 LTD Classic and the all time favorite 148 GTL. But when people started making low quality and cheap radios Cobra did the same. The Cobra 18 WX ST was a perfect example of this trend.
The first time I saw this radio I actually thought it looked pretty cool. It incorporated the front facing speaker which was a feature that many people had sought after for years in a radio. (To this day there have only ever been a couple radios produced that had the front facing speaker.) It had the basic controls, Volume, Squelch, Ch 9 priority button but also included weather station capabilities. The most advertised feature of this radio was Cobra’s Sound Tracker system which could be activated by simply pressing a button.
In my first experience owning this radio I found that the radio itself did work….barely.
The receive ability of this radio was about half that of my other radio at the time, a Uniden PC122. The sound tracker function when activated resulted in a noticable decrease in noise, but the problem was that it decreased both the incoming signal and the background static. The transmission output was about 3 watts with 1 watt of forward swing from a whistle with the stock microphone and even less with normal speech. I sold the radio a day later.
A couple of years passed and I had the chance to buy another one of these at a very low cost and I figured that I’d give it another chance thinking that maybe the first one was just a bad apple.
The second radio displayed the exact same characteristic of the first one. Low receive, low output wattage and a very low level of modulation. This time around I added a power microphone and the output of the radio was 3 watts swinging to 5 watts with modulation.
I did a number of on air reports with this radio and even with the power microphone people told me continuously to turn up my mic gain as the radio transmitted a very soft signal and I was having trouble being heard. I opened up the radio looking for any internal adjustment pots for modulation or output power and there were none to be found.
I thought maybe my experiences with this radio just happened to be bad luck, but after a little digging I knew I wasn’t alone.
When I asked for other people’s input on the Cobra 18 this is what they had to say -
“….the Cobra 18...Biggest piece of junk I hate to admit ever owning”
“…I also have two dead cobra 18's somewhere. I HATE THEM! "
“…The cobra 18 was the biggest piece of cow dung I ever owned!!”
The Cobra 18 WX ST is a lemon. Especially since it originally retailed at $79.95. For the price this radio was definitely not worth buying.
Now I’m sure people have had worse radio experiences, and I’ve heard the many complaints about the Mirage and Northpoint brands. But overall I’ve heard more bad reviews from more people about this particular radio than any other.
Cobra as a corporation has produced some of the finest radios around, but this was not one of them.
And so the Cobra 18 WX ST gets my vote as the worst CB radio.