I purchased a Maxon CM10 from the nice chaps at Thunderpole (£59.99 delivered).
So far so good. It's a very simple FM/AM multi-regional CB radio that has just the basic controls necessary. Nothing fancy to look at, just enough to get you on air. The external build quality looks pretty reasonable for the price and the fist mic is very 'Pro-PMR' looking and nice (and big) to use. The audio from the bottom mounted speaker is clear, loud and nice sounding.
A quick on-air "one nine for a rig check" with the local channel 19 muppets (hello Cavalier!
) resulted in an "ITV Quality" (not quite BBC quality 
) radio report!The controls on the front are:
On/Off & Volume: Switch it on and keep turning it to increase volume. No annoying beeps or chirps on power up.
AM/FM: Works when you select a region that allows FM or AM mode, when in regional mode 07, this button switches between UK and EU channels. The EU band is designated by a small dot at the bottom right of the display.
CH9/19: Cycles between Ch 9 then Ch 19 then the last channel you were on. Does what it says.
SQ: Fully anti-clockwise and it clicks 'off', which selects auto squelch. Sort of works, all depends on your local conditions. Otherwise it acts as a normal Squelch control.
Channel UP & DOWN buttons: Press once and it moves up or down a channel, press and hold and it quick cycles through the channels. No scan mode though, it just cycles through the channels as long as you hold it. No beeps when changing channel, it's completely silent when you press any of the buttons.
Red TX light: Comes on when you press the PTT button...
FM light: On when in FM mode, off when in AM mode.
Two digit LCD display: Displays the channel number.
The radio is multi-regional (as is usual with the new CB radios).
The radio displays the region number (01 to 08) when you first switch the radio on (it reverts to displaying the channel number after a few seconds), you can select which regional mode you want to operate on by holding down the 'UP' button while switching on. The 'UP' & 'DOWN' buttons let you cycle through the 01 to 08 options and holding the 'DOWN' button in for a few seconds locks the selection in.
I'm hoping to make use of it as a mobile and backup radio, so I will post more once I've used it a bit more.
Cheers to Simon for the heads up on this one, it's a little cracker!
=D>
