Präsident McKinley USA AM/SSB CB-Radio

Great radio not overly menu driven but still feature packed

Fits perfectly in the dash of my 2003 Jeep Wrangler TJ, the auto squelch feature is a must have feature as well!

5 star CB radio and 5 star service from Fleetwood. Thank you for the quick shipping!

Excellent SSB radio. I run mine with a linear and the adjustable power output from the unit is great for that, it lets me feed it with about 1W for clean transmissions. I like everything about this radio with one exception: No lockouts for scanning. Cant have 6 in the mix. Otherwise its great.

I like the radio a lot, BUT, when I scan selected channels, President thinks that channels 9 and 19 should be included in the scan list. With strong stations on 9 and 19 (south of the border, running extreme power on 9, with skip-shooters on 19), I have to turn the squelch way up. Cannot choose my 2 channels for Dual Watch, either. Some writing on the display is rather tiny. I prefer an RF Gain that doesn't click, and that you don't have to go into a Menu to access. The radio is compact; I like the front speaker, and I have received good reports on the transmit audio (my radio has a slight tune-up-no parts replaced). It was easy to velcro to the passenger side of my center console in my car. In the house, I did think my Uniden Bearcat 980SSB sounded smoother on receive with the ANL on. The Uniden won't be in the car, because I think that a combination of heat, and having the display brightness at maximum on a previous 980SSB, has caused display problems. So, in my case, I think my President McKinley (used with a Larsen NMO-27 in a high location), receives and transmits very well. Memorizing what those buttons below the screen do, before you put it in the car, wouldn't be a bad idea.

So far I'm satisfied with the radio. I need to upgrade my antenna but that was expected.

I had a cobra set up 29LX with stud coax and 4’ flex antenna all cobra and went weeks trying to get my SWR down to nothing that wouldn’t blow up everything but couldn’t. Dang near ground strapped the whole Jeep. Finally I ditch the cobra system and went with this president model a 4’ Firestik FS and the fire ring on a spare tire mount Jeep JK and within the hour it took me to install everything I was 1.2 across the board!! Excellent radio and excellent pairing off all the above mentioned components for me!!

I've always been on cb since I was 14 yrs oldI had the original presiden Grant am ssb cbCb.s have come along way Since thenThis radio is so easy to useAnd program tooThe output power is fantasticMy contacts said it has very Clear audioI also own a president Lincoln II + 10 and 12Meter radio too great radio alsoI hold a amateur radio tech license alsoThe seller was greatI got my radio a day early tooI usually talk on Lsb 38 on the cbIf you want a quality radioGet the president McKinley

I own 2 president radios now and they are a good value. My first McKinley was defective out of the box and I was disappointed but my replacement came in 2 days . the seller made it right so no complaints. The recieve is great we have a geo storm going on so propagation is spotty but I made contacts coast to coast when the band was open. My swr is 1.2 and the built-in meter says the same. Power is closer to advertised than any radio I tested before. So id recommend the McKinley to anybody who wants quality and value. .Update.. somewhere around a year now and radio 2 is broke. Some of the buttons stopped functioning and this is a base use application,not in a 140f to 0f degree vehicle getting Jar around. Even if pres wants it back for investigation and made it right I'm still saying for 175 bucks you would throw 50 more on and get a qt60 which may be junk also Idk but least got all kinds of cool features while it works.I bought what is supposed to be the best new sub 200 SSB 1 dead on arrival now one screwed up in about 75 uses right around a year old. Doo Doo Pres

I started out talking on the cb radio when I was 14 years old. I’m used to seeing single side band mobile radios being larger in size. This radio is tiny but it has a lot of power to be so small. The radio has a great transmitter and receiver built into it. I love the channel up down buttons on the microphone. This is a great radio to have. The radio worked perfectly out of the box. Nice little radio to have.

Although the Automatic Squelch Control is not nearly as effective as they claim it is, it does "sort of" work when the atmospheric conditions are right. But in the remote north woods (above 45 degrees latitude) with ASC on, I'm listening to conversations in Florida and Tennesse with a Lil Wil antenna magnetically mounted on the top of a pickup truck. Manual squelch cuts out the clutter. That built in VSWR (Voltage Standing Wave Ratio) meter was what my previous unit lacked and using it made a world of difference! Read the manual and watch some videos online and you can tweak your antenna to reach nearly perfect efficiency. I'd recommend the VSWR testing in Ch 1 and Ch 40, compare the numbers, if Ch 40 is higher than Ch 1 than your antenna is too long. Get a second opinion before you do the next step, but I nipped the end off my antenna whip (cutting off about 1/8") and then retested it. I went from communicating within a 1/2 - 1 mile range to reaching out to 3-5 miles in the thick north woods. This CB unit was worth it, if only for that function. The built in weather radio, scanning functions, channel buttons on the handset, color and brightness options, and on and on with the features. I am happy with it.

I just wanted a modern radio that performs well without all the lights and goofy flashy stuff that so many modern CB radios come with. This one was it. I managed to get a SSB contact in Nova Scotia from the SE United States a while back, and I don't mess with DX very much. I was not running an amp with it. Local contacts are clear, and it has a very nice feature set. Sound quality is very good, and the front-firing speaker is awesome. Bass and Trebel is also adjustable. I turned the trebel down a bit to make static a little less grating to the ear. Build quality is good, and it resembles a VHF/UHF ham radio in appearance. Highly recommended to anyone that just wants a good radio without all the flashy pomp. Flashing lights and chrome accents don't make them work better.

Installed a Uniden PRO520XL a while back and decided I liked using CB enough to buy a better radio.I had a lot of issues with what I believe is alternator or spark plug noise on the cheap Uniden, the ANL on it cut the noise but also cut a lot of the signal along with it. The noise reduction features on the President seem to be a lot better at cutting the noise while still retaining a clear signal.Built in speaker is good quality. Gets loud enough without distorting. External probably would be better but I'll have this mounted close enough to me that I don't think I'll bother.Built in SWR meter is nice. Matches my external meters close enough and is always nice to have as just a final sanity check in any installation, or to just double check SWR occasionally.SSB also works well. I don't hear many people locally using it but was able to make a short contact from Texas to Georgia just running barefoot/stock power, center of the roof mounted ~50 inch antenna. Atmospheric conditions are obviously the main limitation but shows that this radio can get out there.

This addition to my review is to document the performance of the replacement to the first radio shipped to me.As noted below, the first radio had some problems. I returned it, and ordered a replacement. The new radio works very well. Internal speaker sounds good and no spurious tone in audio. Power output and modulation are close to legal maximum, in both AM and SSB.Have made several contacts, every contact remarks on good sound of this radio. Just finished a 13.5 mile mobile contact on SSB; the other operator has decades of experience on the radio and commented that this President McKinley was one of the best sounding "out of the box" radios he's heard. I'm very pleased with this purchase, and highly recommend this radio.*** ORIGINAL REVIEW BELOW ***Nice radio with lots of good features. Unfortunately the radio delivered to me came with no internal speaker output, and had a spurious tone when receiving in AM mode.Very attractive, modern radio with a lot going for it. Installation was straightforward. The small size of this unit allows for many options for install. Unfortunately, upon power-up, no output from internal speaker. The external speaker output worked fine. Great reception, except a very low level tone, maybe around 1KHz or so, was present in AM receive. No problems noted during SSB reception. Power output and modulation was right up where it should be.I like this radio, and believe the problems I experienced with this individual unit are simply a random manufacturing defect. I have returned the defective radio, and will be ordering a replacement.

I installed this radio approximately a week ago. Nothing but compliments on it. Worked like a BOSS. Then, when I turned it on I noticed that the channel and buttons took approximately a 1/2 a second to turn on. However I immediately got loud broken static, would not tx, no squelch control. The ASQ stopped working, manual squelch not working. SWR was set at 1.2 on channel 1, 1.3 on channel 20 and 1.5 on ch. 40. Now showing 1.0 on all 40 channels. This radio worked like a BOSS for about a week, prior to this happening. I replaced the radio with another radio I have with no issues, swr on a ext. meter was the same as the day installed. PLEASE do not allow my information to discourage you from considering this radio from this seller. I just happened to get a bad unit. I will update as soon as I hear anything back from the seller. Yes I am returning this unit in the hopes of them replacing it with the same type. Update on this issue will be coming. AN UPDATE, I received my replacement radio on 12/13/2019. I installed it and as I suspected from this radio and seller, IT IA AMAZING. YES I would not hesitate in buying from the seller again. And I plan to very soon. GREAT people to work with and GREAT radio to have,

I like the President cb radios, well thought out features in a nice compact package. The McKinley has some nice features that work, the SWR meter / adjustment works perfectly. The front firing speaker works really well for mounting locations that are not above your head or in the dash. The multiple button functions work well after a bit of practice. I paired the radio with the President Montana antenna and was up and running within a half hour, having the SRW functionality allowed me to make the many modifications to the whip quickly. The SWR of the antenna was way off and required multiple cuts with a Dremel tool to get to the 1:1 ratio. The sound of this radio is way above the older CB it replaces, was able to pickup conversations that were too faint to effectively listen to on my older radio. The weather alert functionality is a nice feature that has value during longer road trips. Great radio for the money spent.

Ok, at first I gave this a great review, two months after getting it, It will not transmit, receives great, but I can't talk out, swr has been at 1.0, sometimes goes up to 1.2, but usually sets on 1.It is past the return time for Amazon, I contacted president electronics and they gave me a radio repair place to contact, president does not do their own repairs, I have to send it to a independent repair shop in Pennsylvania to have checked out then they decide if it is under warranty or not.The radio was / is matched with a president antenna.Future review pending on the repair done, time without the radio, and how the warranty turns out.Update, after sending radio to repair shop, they didn't fix, returned the radio to me and said they adjusted something, still not working, contacted president electronics again and they sent me a return label to send it to them direct, after they got the radio, they did exchange it and sent me a new radio.Time without a radio was almost three months total, but I did end up with a working radio that I do recommend and I will buy another McKinley radio, I just had bad luck with the first one on repair and the post office losing it twice, that was three weeks of the three months being without it.The people at president are great and go out of their way to help , it just has to go through the procedures.

I'm really enjoying this radio so far. I bought it to use as a SSB base station and since I'm messing around with different antenna options the built-in audible SWR meter is great. It has all the features you could want and I'm sure would be excellent for mobile use due to the front facing speaker and great sound quality. The only problem I have experienced is that the scan/squelch threshold is not as defined as other radios. There is no real hard line between static and silence, so sometimes the radio won't enter scan mode or breaks the squelch and stops on channels that seem to be completely silent. I've also had to listen to a lot of choppy static just to hear the conversation that was more audible on my handheld with a rubber ducky antenna. This has also caused me to over-squelch the radio and miss out on some signals as I tested it with my handheld that does have a pretty precise squelch threshold. The thresholds can be different between AM/USB/LSB so it has to be adjusted when moving back and forth between modes, but this is minor. However, in AM mode, the Automatic Squelch Control (ASC) does work well on this radio but you cannot use ASC in USB/LSB. Overall great purchase and I hope I can figure out my antenna situation soon and start hearing more skip!

This is what the Unident BC980SSB should have been.Pros1) Small, good size for a Ford Escape or other small SUV2) Contains all the features of the Uniden BC980SSB3) I seem to pull in more activity than the Uniden BC980SSB, but I've also switched to a Midland 12-2442 antenna.Cons1) Buttons a little difficult to navigate, with the Uniden BC980SSB slightly better having dedicated buttons.2) I get alternator noise through the President McKinley radio! My Uniden BC980SSB I get no noticeable alternator whirring noise at all!3) The display is slightly better than the Uniden BC980SSB, and I can now barely distinguish the numbers on the display while wearing polarized sunglasses. Regardless, should be an auto dimmer, using real time clock with better lighting, similar to car stereo radios.My setup:Ford Escape with sunroofMidland 12-2442Hardwired to empty fuse slot on middle console, passenger side.External "Accessories Unlimited" noise cancelling speaker (External speakers always seem far better.)I was initially getting erratic SWR while holding the mic or touching the CB radio case. I then attached a dedicated 10 AWG stranded green ground to the case and attached to the fuse box ground screw with crimped/soldered connectors. Inadvertently cutting ~15 foot length to test ground elsewhere with little success, I then found coiling the excess near the fuse box in a 4-6 inch diameter coil ceased all erratic SWR and brought SWR on channel 1 to 1.0! I then later realized the sunroof caused likely a decreased ground plane, so the coiled ground is likely acting like an additional metal ground plane. I then tuned channel 40's SWR slighly lower than channel 1, in the event I utilized SSB. I found after doing all this, the CB is very well calibrated & sensitived, with the ASC feature working far better now!Only continuing problem, I get alternator whirring noise with this unit! A ferrite bead on the positive power cable doesn't really help much, but seems very slightly better. Pulled antenna cable and mic without any improvement. I had no alternator noise with the Uniden BC980SSB, so assuming after this, this radio is just highly more sensitive for which maybe a good thing... or the manufacturer needs to recaliberate. Shrugs.

BLOWS Cobra out of the water! This is an AWESOME radio right out of the box it was easy to tune the antenna because of the built-in SWR Tuning feature. I am a Pilot Car driver and depend on my CB radio a lot, all the drivers I work with all say how clear my radio is and what a strong signal it transmits. I also purchase the Maryland RW CB antenna at the same time and I am able to hear & talk to drivers 5-6 miles out. Watch the President McKinley USA 40 ch AM/SSB CB radio teardown and review from MikesRadioRepair on YouTube, thanks Mike it really helped making the decision to buy this radio easier.I would Highly recommend buying this radio to my friends.Update June 2019; The radio is still going strong no problems at all. I love this radio very easy to use, packed with auto features that really work, Automatic SWR Reading Zero In "Beep" Function really makes it easy to tune in your antenna, the Automatic Squelch Control is nice because you don't have to even mess with the squelch unless your on 19 and you want to tune out some of the long distant rambling. The scan feature allows you to scan all channels or only your channel plus 9 and/or 19, or you can scan your channel plus 3 memory channels really easy to monitor your friends out on the road. If your thinking of getting a radio you won't regret buying this one!

I purchased this cb to replace my trusty cobra 29 and have ssb capabilities.Things I like:Compact sizeReady to go out of the box. No need to peak and tune.SWR calibration processChannel changing micAbility to adjust power out of the boxScan featureWeatherThings I dislike:Having to key the mic to make some adjustmentsThe lack of a rf gain knob.6 pin mic connectorSomewhat noisyOverall I like the radio a lot. I found that you need to run the mic gain at about 80% or it distorts transmissions. Set up is super easy with the swr tone calibration. Don’t expect a ton of power, but the radio plain works. I’ve talked dx barefoot but you won’t get much attention unless conditions are in your favor or you add power. The radio has great “ears” for a mobile transceiver. The one thing I miss about my 29 is the rf gain knob. Sometimes you want to have it open and sometimes you only want to hear the other side of the highway and squelch alone doesn’t work as well as gain and squelch combined and the ability to easily make adjustments.One feature that I’m still on the fence about is the Automatic Squelch Control. It’s not quite perfect yet. There are times it works too good and other times it’s not good enough.Overall I really like the radio and I’m happy with its performance. I wish I could give it 4.5 stars as it more indicative of my opinion. The negatives aren’t deal breakers, hopefully they can be corrected in future editions.