Uniden BEARCAT 880 CB Radio with 40 Channels and Large Easy-to-Read 7-Color LCD Display with Backlighting, Backlit Control Knobs/Buttons, NOAA Weather Alert, PA/CB Switch, and Wireless Mic Compatible

Out of the box it was great. The the display started to dim and menus were unreadable within a year. Its under warranty so sent it in. After a month or so received it back with a working display with really bright colors. Yea, great its working again. Now almost a year later parts of the display have stop showing. No meter display and the channel display is intermittent. I had a Cobra before this without issue. This is my first Uniden. So not great.

I have been driving truck for many years and have always leaned more toward Uniden Cb radios then the Cobras both are great radios but just personal preference but this latest cb radio from uniden the Bearcat 880 is fine piece of crap I was excited to see such a cool looking radio something that looked modern and crisp from this century other then the classic 70s style theyve all had for years but dont let the cool looks and neat features be deceiving its just a gimmick to get you to buy this junk Ive tried 2 of these one from Amazon and one directly from Uniden and theyre both junk and the one from Amazon actually did power up but that was about it no reception and no transmission at all just basically a pretty lit up brick I guess Ill keep my old 70s style barefoot uniden pc 78 ltw it might not be the most attractive radio but at least I can talk for 5 to 7 miles on it kudos to Amazon for the excellent A 1 service not their fault that this cb radio is a POS

I purchased this radio for both its advertised functions, CB radio and PA system. Firstly, it is a well made product as far as I can tell. Seems to be well made with an easily seen display. The handheld mic also fits well in the hand. The CB works well with the Wilson 305-35 300-Watt Little Wil mag mounted antenna. I could transmit and receive CB transmissions and the weather broadcasts without issue. The PA on the other hand was kind of a bust for me. I hooked it up to a 100W speaker installed it the engine bay and the volume was alright (mediocre) during testing with the BearCat wired directly to the battery. I turned on the vehicle and suddenly bam, no PA at all. I can key the mic and be talking fine as I turn on the engine and as soon as the engine starts, no PA. I tried multiple work arounds (and combinations of workarounds) including installing a small 100W amp, wiring to the circuit board, powering it via a DC outlet, etc. Some of these allowed it to actually function while the vehicle was running but at still inadequate volume to be a decent PA. Others continued to simply not work while the vehicle was on. I ended up purchasing the LAMPHUS Sound alert, and wired it directly to the battery (as I had tried with the BearCat) and used the already installed 100W speaker and voila, very loud and clear PA using the exact methods attempted for the BearCat. Maybe a professional could have made it work or figured out what I did wrong but I could not. So long story short, good radio, not so good PA. I will keep it since its a decent radio but since it only has 50% of the intended functionality, I uninstalled it from my vehicle.

Vendor (Amazon associated seller) waited 4 days to ship. Used cheap shipping - in short the item arrived 2 weeks after it was ordered. But the radio is great - with it had a SWR meter and some of the changes were easier. If you have space in your truck/car get a larger unit with more features. If you are space limited this one is perfect.

Fantastic radio! I love the diagnostic feature. For an amateur like me, it already saved me a headache when I failed the antenna test (it wasnt grounded properly) so instead of me backtracking I just went straight to my antenna mount, found the problem and corrected it.

Hard to see in sun light !

So, far, so good. It installs the same as any other CB radio Ive installed. Here are a couple of nuances: SWR meter. I like the included SWR meter. However, it was not nearly as convenient as those with a hard switch. The reason is that one button sequentially toggles between RF/CAL/SWR. When tuning your antenna, you need CAL and SWR. Its an iterative process that requires switching between Channel 1 and Channel 40. Each time you go to a new channel, you calibrate and then measure SWR. But, instead of being able to go back and forth between Cal and SWR, you have to also cycle through RF each time. 33% more button pushes. I think I went between channels 10 times at least. So, I pushed that button 30 times instead of 20 times. Also it increases the liklihood that youre in the wrong mode when depressing the PTT button. Irritating. PA setting. I asked a question above about whether the radio would remember the mode it was in. That is, if you were in PA mode and turned the radio off, would it come back up in PA mode. The question was answered, Yes. This isnt correct. The radio always powers on in RF/TX mode. Unfortunately, Amazon doesnt let you answer your own questions, so this incorrect information will stand. Initially, I bought this primarily for the PA setting. I wasnt even going to install an antenna. However, if you operate a CB radio without an antenna (or a badly tuned antenna), you can damage the radio. Because the radio doesnt hold the PA mode setting, I risk accidentally transmitting in CB mode and, thus, risk damaging the radio. So, I installed an antenna to prevent this. Too bad. PA speaker becomes and external CB speaker. The radio has two 3.5 mm jack ports. One is for a PA speaker. One is for an external CB speaker. Presumably, the PA jack would only transmit what was said into the mic out through the PA speaker. Presumably, the external speaker would transmit received signals to the radio out through to the external speaker. In practice, the CB will also transmit received signals out to the PA speaker. Yes, I have it attached to the correct port. So, if you want to use the PA speaker, make sure the radio is tuned to a channel with no traffic. Otherwise, when youre done talking and release the PTT button, the PA speaker will begin transmitting whatever radio traffic coming through on the CB channel. I find this very annoying. I dont know if this is how all CB radios work. Im taking a star off for this. I have mine mounted to the top of my dash in the tray table. So, it gets maximum sunlight in the day. It gets pretty washed out. I have to go to the white setting to get any resolution. But, it is what it is. Im not faulting the radio for this. Built-in speaker is loud and clear. However, I the talkback feature is pretty quiet. I have it turned up all the way and the talkback report is still very quiet. No big deal. Microphone is nice. Looks good, works good. Also, I have to echo the fault of not putting beep settings in the menu. Not sure why the designers hard-wired the beep. Why not allow the customer a few choices on the beep?

Love the radio not to bad to function. Cons mic gain poor mic durable but not enough power

This is my second one first one the display went out but was over 4 years old so I did not want to change brackets in jeep so I bought another