Knights Electrocom

One of the new generation of CB radios, designed for use across Europe. These new radios can all be set to operate on the legal CB bands for the country in which they are being operated and will automatically allow AM/FM use in countries where this is permitted. There is a choice of 10 bands, which covers all European bands.

The backlit LCD display shows channel number and "band", plus a 10-bar signal meter (receive signal strength & transmit power).

Controls are: volume, squelch, and rotary channel -change.

Dual Watch - this allows you to monitor 2 channels at once. If there is a signal on either channel, the radio will automatically "lock" onto that channel.

EMG (emergency channel) - pressing this button once takes you straight to channel 9, press it again and you go to channel 19.

Quick Up/Down - pressing these buttons moves the channels up/down by 10.

Scanning - pressing the scan button starts the full band scanning. The radio will quickly scan through all the channels on the current band and will automatically stop when a "busy" channel is found. The scanning will resume if the signal stops for more than 5 seconds.

AM/FM - in countries where AM & FM are permitted, this switch will select the mode. In the UK this switch will change between the 2 legal bands (UK-40 and EU-40).

ESP (Electronic Speech Processor) - a new exclusive feature, this button starts the electronic "Compander" (Compressor-Expander). On transmit this works as a speech compressor, and on receive as a audio expander.
In my opinion this works well on transmit (making the modulation noticeably stronger) but on receive I feel it sometimes distorts the audio (it does certainly vary depending upon the original quality of the audio). It is a shame that you can not switch the RX & TX functions on/off separately.

The radio is supplied with a good size microphone with up/down channel change controls on the top of the mic. There is also a "lock" button which if depressed disables the channel change buttons on the mic (for those people who have a habit of catching them accidentally).

Overall the radio is nicely made and is very similar in design to the Midland 78, but with a better microphone and the addition of the ESP Speech Processor.