Scanner Reviews

I used it once and now it no longers works. I do not know why

Attempting to load the software for this reader resulted in an error and would not load. I atmepted on another computer with the same error message. (Both were laptops.) I then atempted to load onto a desktop PC. Here it loaded fine. After several attempts to solve this problem with tech support. We both gave up and decided this will not work on my computer, so I returned it. Full refund came promptly with out any hassel.

The installation was easy on both desktop and notebook. I had to calibrate the instrument twice, but then everything was working well. Given the low cost, this is a great scanner for busy people who do not have time to type the information into palmpilot!

As a dedicated Epson user (3 Epsons at home and 4 at work over the past few years) I have arrived at the conclusion that Epson quality is no more. The CX5400 I have died after 18 moinths from the fatal manufacturing flaw that so many 5400 users complain about. That flaw is the ink tube clogging and being almost impossible to repair. The same thing has happened to the CX4200 I have at work. Take my advice, Epson is no longer the standard in inkjet printers. The Durabrite ink may be the undoing of Epson. This ink is far too prone to clogging. If Epson does not make a change and soon they will be at the bottom of the heap if they are not there already.

This is my first ever review on ANY item...

This thing works real well, great qualty finish.. yet it shakes with a richter scale.. after about a year, the 2nd time i tried to replace the freagn expensive cartridges... it wont print... it would pretend to print... out comes a blank paper.

i read somewhere that it basically became a 'paperweight' and INDEED it was. all i used it now is for the scanner... but i just bought myself a canon mp500.. a hella high rated printer to go along with the canon sd700IS digital camera that i got... bye bye epson!

oh yea, i never even used a drop of ink from the new cartridges that i bought for this and it read that they were being used... WTF!

I've had this printer for a bit over a year. It worked just great and I was really happy with it, but then... it stopped printing colors and then stopped printing black. After some research I found there is a known problem where a tube at the bottom of the printer clogs with ink. The tube pops off. I followed the directions to fix it (which involved taking the printer apart and several hours of work) and I'm printing again, but not great. Print quality is terrible. I would not recommend buying this unit because the fix is not something an average user would want to do.

I have owned a variety of scanners over the last 20 years, this is a fantastic unit. I had considered going digital, but saw no immediate reason to spend $500-600. This unit is easy to use, small, and fun. I have listened to shortwave for a long time as well, this is OK for shortwave. Obviously, a Grundig or Eton would outperform this unit, however, for basic listening (BBC, VOA, AFRTS) this is great.

After less than 6(!) months the unit has failed with giving broadcast error alerts daily no matter which channel (we have 2 locally) is used, even when connected to a high gain antenna.

The unit obviously has some sort of design issue.

The radio was fairly easy to set up. However, like the other reviews stated, the alarm constantly goes off because of a "radio reception error". There is nothing stated about this in the manual & it happened on average several times a week. Because of this I eventually turned off the alarm, which pretty much defeats the purpose. I returned this radio & will look for a better product.

Radio worked very well for us in upstate SC. Range was quite good and, being close to a nuclear plant, the Nuclear Emergency codes are pretty important to us. Amber alert worked great (unfortunately at 2AM... ugh..) Everything was fine until one weekend we noticed all the lights were illuminated and none of the programming would work anymore. Totally unresponsive.

Of course we're out of the 90 day warranty. By the way, 90 day warranty? I mean seriously, is the product not more dependable than that? I'm going to replace this radio with a unit that provides at least a 1 year warranty.

Opinions expressed here are the sole product of the author and do not represent the opinions of Amazon, Sima Corp., the federal government, the president, the pope or my mom (though she'll probably agree with me.)

I have had this scanner now for several months and have had quite a bit of experience with it. I chose this scanner, although in some reviews I read it didn't get the highest marks, because it had the film adaptors I needed for my negatives - specifically 2 1/4" negatives. I couldn't find another good scanner with that particular size. But I have been very happy with it - couldn't be happier. I didn't have any problem with software, hardware or speed. Nothing has gone wrong. I use a top of the line iMac with 1 GB of memory and I'm sure that helps speedwise. I have found the software that is supplied with the scanner to be more than adequate (the Epson driver, Photoshop Elements 2, and Silverfast), though I eventually upgraded to PhotoShop Elements 3. I haven't used Silverfast much at all because I found the combination of the Epson driver and PhotoShop Elements to be able to do everything I needed on my 65 year old negatives. One reviewer said this scanner is overkill. It is if you are only going to scan photos. Its strength is in being able to get good resolution on negatives and slides for a moderate price. I have used the scanner with both Mac OSX 10.3.8 and 10.4.2 and there are no problems on either one.

I am amazed at the ability of this scanner. Its definitely worth the money, as is most Epson products.

I just received the scanner today. It was easily installed and worked great out of the box. This scanner is identical to the PRO version (the only difference is the additional software in PRO). For home and family photo scanning this version is more than enough. If you are a serious photography hobbyist or professional, the extra software (upgrade in Silver Fast from the LE version plus Monaco EZ Color calibrating system) in the PRO version more than makes up for the price difference. After much thought, I went with the PRO version. The software does have a slight learning curve, but even winging it on my first scan I got great results. I have been very happy with all my Epson products over the years and this scanner, I can tell, will fall into the same category.

For those of you who are looking at this thinking it is a CB radio, it is NOT. Though this may look like a CB radio, it is actually a radio designed to transmit in the amateur radio frequency spectrum. Transmitting on this radio without the proper license issued by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) will subject you to charges by the FCC, which can include siezure of all radio equipment, as well as monetary fines in the thousands of dollars.

There are very few licensed operators who use this type of equipment. It is mainly used by "freebanders" and truckers looking to get away from the confines of regular CB. Besides those drivers who illegally operate these radios, many trucking companies are now getting fined by the FCC for allowing this equipment to be used in their trucks, and are therefore restricting these radios from being installed by the drivers. As the FCC continues it's efforts to crack down on the illegal use of these radios, you have to stop and ask yourself if it's worth the risk to operate one of these radios without the proper licensing.

If you are truly interested in becoming a properly licensed amateur radio operator who can legally trasmit on one of these radios then there are plenty of online and offline resources to help you out. However, as far as amateur radio equipment is concerned, this type and brand of radio is pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel, as lacks most of the useful features found on decent amateur radio equipment.

Just bought this radio. It has had a lot of good reports.
I like the way the radio transmits. It will do 30 watts out of box AM, and 100 watts SSB. It did not have MosFEt Finals like the ad claims. It has Mosfet pre Drivers, but the actual finals are sc2290 Transistors, Bi Polar type like all the 10 meter radios and 2 pill linears use.
I thought that was a disappointment, because that is about the only reason I purchased this radio.
I wanted to try out MosFet Finals, as a cleaner alterative to transistors. If you are going to buy one of these Cobra Rigs to get into the MosFet world, Beware this radio is a mixture of both worlds.
I have been told by others that it is a very excellent sounding radio on SSB but without talkback enabled, you cannot monitor your audio or echo effects. In fact I have never seen a radio with echo without talkback, very strange. To modify this radio for 11 meters would be a hard and risky business and not legal in the USA. It would also be a nightmare because the components are all surface mounted, and tiny.
The radio peaked to about 120 watts AM but the MosFet pre-drivers don't drive the SC2290's the way the conventional SC2166 or similar do, as there is a higher dead key, and less forward swing. If you try to take the dead carrier lower than 10 watts the SWR will go crazy on you, as if the PRE DRIVER MOSFETS fall out of range or something. The smallest dead key possible before SWR funk is 20 watts. Way to high for a lot of amps.
Low power equals about 20 to 85 bird watts. High power about 40 to 125 bird.
Now the really bad part. The receiver has rotten channel rejection, and if someone within the city limits runs a lot of power, the radio becomes almost un-usable. It is a BLEED BOX, but that seems to be a trait of Cobra, Uniden.
This Radio may look great and sound great on transmit but without good ears a radio is worthless.
The receive is no where near the quality of a RANGER or RCI 10 meter rig, but for $204.00 what can you expect. There is a mod out the to add standard components to the SMT board, (nightmare)to reduce the channel rejection, but once again that evolves micro board level repair. It's a big hassle, and you might end up wasting your radio! (NIGHTMARE)
Why won't Cobra spend a couple of more bucks and make these radios receive better? Any way it's a beautiful radio, in the country it might be really great, but in the city it is a little to noisy for my taste.

COBRA 200 GTL DX w/Nightwatch

Type: 10 meter radio

Frequency range: 28 to 29.7 MHz from factory - 26.0650 to 29.6950 after conversion

RF power: 4 watts low power - 30 watts high power (deadkey)

Transistors: Dual 40-watt SC2290 finals

Control frequency switch: 10 kHz - does not work after frequency coversion for expanded coverage.

Bands: 4

AM/FM: Yes

SSB: Yes, 100+ watts

Channels: 320 (80 per switch setting)

Variable power : Yes - high/low button, high (max range) and low (conserves power)

Antenna warning indicator: Yes

SWR calibration: Yes

NightWatch panel illumination: Yes

Echo control: Yes

Analog meter: Yes

Mic gain: Yes

Frequency counter: Yes, 6-digit

Jacks: 4-pin front mic

Warranty: 1 year parts and labor

In the box: 200 GTL DX radio, microphone, user's manual

RECEIVE -

The radio has an excellent receiver - but it does pick up some background static. The AM stations sound clear far off or close up.

You will get bleedover with this radio - I'd say it's worst within 6 channels.

SSB receive is very clear - the radio stays on frequency for receive very well - no drift whatsoever from turn on to turn off.

TRANSMIT

On low power the AM deadkey on my stock radio was 3 watts swinging to around 12-15 watts. The SSB output was about 12-14 watts.

On high power the AM deadkey on my stock radio was 30 watts swinging to 70 watts. The SSB output was about 110-120 watts.

I didn't test FM or CW.

AM REPORTS- It gives a very steady signal and very clear steady modulation. On high power you definitely get a boost in modulation on both AM and SSB.

Everyone says the radio sounds great and has a very unique sound to it.

SSB REPORTS - Everyone said that the modulation is clear, clean and LOUD. My signal has been hitting everyone well.

THE RADIO LIKES AND DISLIKES -

* I love the NIGHTWATCH

* The echo is really clear and has no distortion problems at all. BUT with no adjustments for speed all you can adjust is the level of echo.

* There is NO talkback - stupidest thing I've every seen. Why have adj echo or roger beep when you can't hear it to adjust it.

* Knobs are pretty solid - Some of them have a tiny amount of "play" and the plastic of them feels a little cheesy but you get over it pretty quick.

* The front facing microphone is kind of in the way, BUT it's nice for up front installs since the radio is already pretty big.

* The fine/coarse controls are excellent. The clarifier is unlocked from the factory and moves on TX and RX.

* Six digit freq counter works great and mine is spot on freq from the factory.

* The push buttons are small and a little cheezy - I wonder how they will hold up over time....buttons on radios like my Omega worked great, but on some older radios I know at some point they pop out or become loose, only time will tell.

* Output from the radio is great on AM and SSB. NO it is not as high as a 2970 ...BUT this radio is $200 less than most of those. It's advertised as a 30 watt RF radio. If you have it tuned and get 80-100 watts AM I'd say its a fair deal. 60-70 watts stock is still plenty to get you heard.

* The stock speaker is okay..not great..but it works good enough for me. I tried it with my external speakers but haven't found a good match yet.

* The heatsink is big and heavy, but I think this radio could still use a fan. After 30 mins of solid use on SSB the heatsink is almost too hot to touch.

* The rotary channel knob is a little picky. Somtimes when you turn it, it won't go to the next channel, sometimes it may skip a channel. Not really a huge problem, 80% of the time it won't miss, but every couple of times you may skip over a channel.

* I don't like that I can't cycle through the 40 channels and end up back at channel 1 - because it's 80 channels per bank you have to go up/down or all the way through all 80 to get back to the beginning.

* BLEEDOVER

As a buyer you do have to be aware of some of the problems - ones acknowledged by Cobra

- Overload possiblity with strong signals
- Possible Warble or popping noise due in modulation (I didn't run into this at all)
- Channel rejection decreases with the NB/ANL on.
- Choppy Squelch control
- Possible that freq display needs adj, not accurate from factory.


SUMMARY - for the $225-250 Price range I think it's an excellent deal. It's never going to outdo a radio + amplifier but if you don't want to run an external amp the radio will do enough to get you heard and is perfect for SSB Dxing!