i use this radio in transportation of tractor n trailers . i purchased this radio hoping the thing will work decently but it only works about three quarters of a mile with supplied antenna. on the other hand if u buy a little wil or a large antenna and buy the bnc connector to go on where the antenna goes to hook it up to a regular cb antenna i got about 2 miles and it was a little staticy . the only thing this radio is good for would be if your planning a road trip with other cars that your all traveling in a group it will work out great with the supplied antenna and the cig plug is great so u dont smoke $20 in batts a day. i think this radio should be a last resort unless like i said u r running in a group on the highway and there great when the cells dont work to contact the car in front of u. if u are thinking of getting this radio for your vehicle instead of a regular cb for every day use dont go take the time and buy a regular cb with good coax and good antenna and just hook it up right because if u like quality u will be much happier with a regular cb i hpe this info helps some people out.

The radio might be ok outside the car but the receiver is very weak with the rubber duck antennae. It was defintely worse then my scanner on WX band. ON CB I heard very little. Either the trucks are talking on cell phones or the radio isn't very good. I used it sporatically between Ft. Worth and Colorado. I really expected to hear a lot of trucker chatter for instance when going through Amarillo on I-40 and during a traffic backup. Nada.

My scanner picked up weather and trains just fine so I don't think it was the car. I'd recommend only using this with an outside anteanne - which I didn't have installed. It might be ok like that. At this point it was a waste of money.

My initial impression of the radio was good. Not too big, nor too heavy... until I put the 9 batteries in the rear. It was still not too unwieldy, but I would have loved it if Cobra could have done more with the electronics portion to preclude the large number of batteries required. Having purchased 2 radios for inter-motorcycle communications with my wife on other bike club members, I paid over $60 for the rechargable batteries and I had to wait a few days to get the Cobra recharging adapter from the factory. Oh well.
Still the radios work reasonably well. I had some problems with their use in conjunction with helmet headsets, but the problems are apparently not with radios.
High volume on the radio brings a distorted output. I have not been able to test the power over distance with the rubber duck antenna yet, but I am sure I will get at least a mile or so.