Many years back I wrote an article about a “Uniden I’d make with SSB” which went on to have over 125,000 views. Now with the arrival of the smaller SSB board in many radios I’ve had a look at what changes could be made and indeed things added to this idea from way back. It was in fact 2014 when I was thinking of this concept for a smaller board. So a long or short 8 years ago!
Above was the idea or the base of my idea. It came from a uhf Uniden from Australia. Actually now I’d cancel Uniden from making it. Actually I’m not sure they could
A: Design it from scratch in these times
B: Would have the interest or desire
I guess Uniden would need more research and development than from Qixiang who already have the board ready! So could be Uniden design and manufacture from Qixiang. There is no doubt Uniden have changed BUT they do still have the flair to design maybe the handset or how it connects from base the head of the radio. Uniden displays, how the numbers are and how they move and the animation of them is always something special. I think a Uniden designed head, hidden feature idea on buttons and indeed some of the passion from a President EU radio imagination would be the best of all worlds and not just the best of one person idea. And again BUT in these times of chip shortage, hiked costs this is an idea that will fall of deaf ears only now in 2022.
The above board has the flexibility to have a no control face just RJ45 or similar socket connecting to a remote head. So this being said you can integrate TX and RX NRC, noise gate , eLEc and Dyna for modulation. All mode and usual things with echo, PC control and maybe also a way to use DATA such as FT8 or something. It’s simple to integrate with software but needs the programming capability and design to be checked. The usual CTCSS / DCS / 50w FM, 50w SSB and 20w AM with the slots for heat release like in the case that it now released. Not to reinvent wheel but to reconsider options and features. Yes it needs VOX and Bluetooth as it’s now almost all needed bar no exception.
Can we go smaller? I think it’s possible to make the board 1/2 again smaller but you’ll need drop the power as heat will be the problem for either remote head or integration into dashboard. Maybe keep power as 4/8/15w FM and 4/8 AM and for SSB maybe variable to 15w to cover amplifier usage. Plus can work 12-10m. By removing adjustments you can aware some component failure and leave it mostly to display, on off switch and squelch! And yes outputs can be fickle things. No end user service mode have it hidden and only available via diagnostic software like on new cars.
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Looking at the picture of the new ” smaller” board I see tons of empty space which tells me it can me half that size. As far as power, I don’t get why so many folks want a cb that puts out anymore than 4 watts on AM & FM and 12 watts on SSB. Honestly when you consider that each time you double your rf output you only gain a 1/2 an S unit in signal, it’s hardly worth making cb radios that do any more than the legal allowed power. Besides keeping the radio to a maximum of 4/12 watts will prevent the heat issues created with higher power output. If you really have the need for higher rf power, buy a linear amplifier.
I mentioned before that there is no need to re-invent the wheel with compact AM/FM/SSB cb radios. Look at the Albrecht AE2990 & it’s many clones. It was small enough to fit in the palm of your hand with the circuit board half the size of the ones in radios like the CRT one. Even if you did not want to go down that road then look at the most compact AM/SSB cb that was ever made, the Uniden PC122xl & it’s clones by Radio Shack the TRC-453 & TRC-465. Why can’t you simply take the circuit board that was used in those radios & add FM which is only a few more parts & with new surface mount parts, this board can be made half or even less that the size it was in the Uniden PC122xl.
Just gimme a new uniden am/fm/ssb radio and I’ll be happy. No need for bluetooth or vox because it will go unused here. Make sure the radio has all the knobs and switches on it with no 980ssb failing display screen. My phone has bluetooth and that’s one too many bluetooth devices for me, if you knew what bluetooth could do then you wouldn’t want it within a half mile of you. I’m not sure uniden is up to the task anymore of providing great radios, I’ll bet the new am/fm/ssb radio will be a re-release of the 980ssb with am and fm.
Simon,
This board does not have such flexibility.
In fact… for making a remote UI, it’s pretty close to the worst possible implementation.
It can be done, but it’s going to require both hardware and software glue logic to do it properly.
The interface is designed around chaging the UI directly on the radio, not remoting it.
The older design… the 6666, Stryker 955 version 1, etc…. were far easier to create a remote UI for.