Uniden BEARCAT 980 40- Channel SSB CB Radio with Sideband NOAA WeatherBand,7- Color Digital Display PA/CB Switch and Noise Cancelling Mic, Wireless Mic Compatible

Pros: 1) Good solid state typical well designed Uniden radio/unit! Cons: 1) There is no real time clock, so the dim profile display lighting settings do not revert automatically during the morning hours. As such, during the daytime, manual setting to the daytime brighter display setting is required with a display not easily viewed due to being too dimly lit. (Luckily the display brightness/contrast profile setting is the first menu item!) 2) Can be not bright enough or not enough contrast during daytime, and/or not dark enough during night time. My Uniden BCD996T had an inverted display, and the inverted display is more easily dimmed during nighttime use and/or easily bright enough during daytime?? 3) Corded microphone is a little on the weak side? 4) Does not seem to scan the frequencies as fast as some of Unidens other units. 5) No mic key signal, albeit most CB mic key sound effects (AKA roger beeps) are horrid sounding versus the more professional FM/VHF radios which typically use something called wait tones and are usually extremely brief. TIP: Make sure you buy a good CB antenna, and tune the antenna by adjusting the antenna length and the 980SSB menu antenna tuning option!

Display panel is too light in daytime, hard to see.

Must have for all truckers!

This is a nice radio, it talks well even without tweaking. Power output is close to legal output, 3.8 watts deadkey on AM, right at 12 for SSB. The NB and ANL are effective and the scan function in conjunction with the memory channels is a nice plus. The case size is about ¼ bigger then DIN top and bottom but I was able to fit it into a DIN pocket with an awful lot of modifications (Key word being awful). As another reviewer wrote, I wish they did make it DIN size, its so close I sure they could have. I did find two faults, the most important one being that the SWR meter is inaccurate. Anything below 3:1 reads as 1:1 on the radio. The meter is only good to tell you if your antenna has fallen off, not good enough to tune it. The other problem is that the display washes out in sunlight, regardless of what setting you use. All in all, Im happy with this radio and think the price/value ratio is high. I hope Uniden keeps them coming.

Radio functions OK. The radio needed a power microphone for use on SSB as modulation level is low. The stock mic would only drive the SSB transmitter up to a few watts. Things not seen in the instructions... To use the channel scanner, You must first turn the squelch up. The scanner will not start if there is any noise coming from the speaker. The RF gain is adjustable if the RF gain button is held down and the channel knob is turned. Numbers appear on the face as the knob is turned indicating the RF gain level. After 9 months had trouble with the radio not turning on. Switch would have to be clicked on and off repeatedly for the radio to come on. Took the bottom cover off and sprayed DeOxit into a small crevice on the closed up rectangular volume control. Found a small metal tab on the side of the volume control that was touching a rectangular pad on the daughterboard for the face but not soldered to it. Soldered it on. After having an external speaker plugged in for 9 months found the internal speaker no longer works. Think the speaker plug contacts are not springing back properly. Left that as it was and plugged the internal speaker back in. Radio turns on OK now, still using it.

Good product only with the right antenna, the recommended antenna is very weak only giving one or two mile range. You will need 10 mile range to make it a good radio

This radio is very functional and very powerful! The clarity with which I can transmit and receive is a substantial improvement over my old little radio. The menus are easy to navigate once you get the hang of it (Very short learning curve) and the display nicely tells you what you need to know. I have seen people complaining about the menu selection beep that you cant turn off and you cant adjust the volume of it but it hasnt really bothered me personally yet but I can see why a lot of people might dislike it! The only gripe I have with this radio that is definitely preventing me from giving it the fifth star is that the display is hard to see in the sun. I have this radio dash mounted and no matter what color I set the display to, its still tough to read whats on the display if its a sunny day. That really is the only truly negative I personally can find with the radio. The ability to change between a night and day profile for the color is a very nice feature though. I will most likely make a small shroud for the display to shade it a little bit. Overall, I would certainly recommend this radio especially if you plan on mounting it away from the sun so the display is more visible.

After researching this unit on line I decided to take the plunge and purchase this radio. Past experience with multi-mode CB radios dictated that one always had to unlock the clarifier in order to keep the radio on frequency. I can say with this radio frequency stability is NOT an issue. Out of the box the radio was within 10-15 Hz to my Kenwood TS-850 HF Transceiver, this radio uses SMT and gone is the through hole 30+ year old circuit design. Bench testing the radio revealed that the radio does 3 watts unmodulated and 4 watts modulated on AM, SSB the radio did 11-12 watts. As I stated frequency stability is excellent, drift varies between +/- 10-15 Hz (at least with the radio I purchased). Viewing the output on my scope and spectrum analyzer revealed a very clean signal on both AM and SSB. The radio has some very useful features such as weather alert and the ability to scan all 40 CB channels. The built in diagnostic feature is very useful for testing voltage and SWR. One feature I would suggest to Uniden is the ability to adjust the volume and or disable the beep whenever a button is pushed or channel is selected. Uniden definitely raised the bar circuit design wise with this radio, and I would recommend this radio to someone looking for a modern SSB CB radio.

Worked great for three days then broke... Swr was 1.0 with a 108 whip, for whatever reason I was talking to a local on 19 am and out of nowhere the reception seemed to vanish, and the on radio broadcast indicator didnt go past the second line. Did the self diagnostics and it failed. Requested a replacement, hopefully mine was just a fluke, Ill update if the second is better. Update, so I got the new one PROMPTLY from amazon, took one day! So kudos for getting me back on the air so quickly, the new radio seems to run cooler, indicated the same swr as the first (1.0-1.1). New one seems to receive better with less interference and static, and I get good reports of the audio, as well as an increase in range. I believe the first one was just a dud, time will tell with this one! I would still recommend this radio, its nice, modern, and the comparatively lower (legal!) output is PERFECT for driving an amp if thats your thing. With my 102 whip drill mounted to my roof it throws out roughly 10 miles! Plenty far.

Works good enough for me out of the box with factory Volvo coax and antenna (with that stupid multiplexer system). Lots of nice features compared to my old Cobra 29NW/ST. This thing even picks up the weather bands so much better than my cobra, despite a few other reviews saying the contrary. I bought the insurance Amazon offers just in case the screen takes a crap.