What you won’t find is a micro USB connector to program the radio. At the back we find connectors for the antenna, an external speaker and a CW key. There’s no way to dim the LCD, you can only switch it off. The readability of the bright display (blue, a typical Superstar trade) is excellent, but will hurt your eyes in the evening. Keys react promptly, there are no issues with pots nor with rotary encoders. If this is really an Anytone, this CB radio is assembled on a different (better!) production line than their 2/70 dual bander… The PCB is very neatly built, there are no last-minute ‘Quick & Dirty’ design changes to be found.
Whatever the brand name, the overall impression is certainly satisfactory. The board of my review sample for example shows V5, but the firmware is V6. Most of the radios have software version numbers attached to the model, which aren’t necessarily identical to the version number of the PCB. I’m pretty sure you will find this radio under other names I didn’t mention here. The PCB of this version is built a bit differently to make it fit into a DIN enclosure.
There’s also a CRE variety, the CRE 8900. This radio can be found under a myriad of names. So, how good (or bad) are these radios really? I gave the Superstar SS6900N the same treatment as any other ham radio equipment I reviewed here, and ended up with some surprising results.
The manufacturer claims the output to be 40 Watts on FM and SSB, and about 12 Watts carrier on AM/CW, all adjustable. They pump out a generous amount of power too, thanks to a couple of IRF520 MOSFET finals (which, BTW, are dirt cheap). They are indeed all-mode: FM, AM, SSB and CW. Yet it would be silly to ignore these radios all together.
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