PNI Escort HP7120 & PNI Extra 48 antenna, unboxing & first look

Описание: I take delivery of a PNI Escort HP7120 and PNI Extra 48 antenna, this is a kit of a radio and a compromise mobile antenna, I suspect the antenna is a 40 channel antenna as it was resonant on EU channel 20 on my tests as you'll see in the video.

The radio is very compact and fits in all modern cars where space for a normal CB radio would be at a premium and has a quick release bracket as opposed to the normal type that holds the radio via two thumb screws, it is supplied with a power cable with a cigarette lighter plug, that contains a fuse, however it also has an extra fuse on the positive side inline, the cable itself is detachable.

I also demonstrate how to set this radio up for UK use as out of the box it is set to EU40 in FM only for the Romanian market, though it is still legal to use like that out of the box people in the UK will want to set it up for the UK channels as a lot of old single band CB27/81 sets are still in use.

The supplied mic has channel change on it, and is connected to the radio via a 6-pin modular connector rather than a standard round connector found normally on CBs.

I pit the TX audio of this radio against my Thunderpole T-3000 as both these radios use Nanfone chassis so I figured maybe they'd sound similar but they do use different mics, not sure which chassis this uses though I know it is possibly shared with the CRT Millennium to some degree and the T-3000 uses a Nanfone CB-689 chassis, however with my SDR in the house the audio tests did have mains hum on them

Given this was filmed during the 2020 Coronavirus lockdown here in the UK I was not able to properly give this radio an on-air test, this will take place after lockdown

My impressions of the radio so far are good, my impressions of the antenna however suggest that it is worth a revisit at a future date.