Intek M-150 Plus Review

Intek M-150 Plus CB Radio

I’m in the process of umming and arring over which remote headed CB radio to purchase. It’s currently a toss up between the tti TCB R-2000 and the Lafayette Venus. I’ve crossed the Albrecht AE-6890 off the list on the grounds that the supplied microphone is pathetic beyond belief. Who at Albrecht thought that cheap and nasty microphone was a good idea on an expensive CB radio?!?

In the meantime I picked up a 2nd hand Intek M-150 Plus for beer money to satisfy my need for listening to either nothing, Olga from the Volga, or locals abusing one another, as I travel.

The Intek M-150 Plus is a basic, but relatively capable CB radio.

Function wise, you get an on/off/volume rotary dial, an AS(Q)/SQUELCH rotary dial, UP/DN buttons, RB (Roger Beep) button, ANL/PA (automatic Noise Limiter for AM) button, the obligatory EMG button (9/19), and a UK/CEPT (AM/FM) Button. You get a three character LED channel display.

There is no signal strength meter.

It’s a ‘multi-standard’ CB radio, with means it covers all the European CB allocations, including the useful Spanish setting of 4W AM/FM on the CEPT 40 channels, which will become the default European CB standard (including in the UK, eventually! ).

The channel change is only controlled by the push buttons on the front of the CB radio, no rotary control, and no scan function. The microphone is a basic but competent unit, but it has no controls on it apart from the PTT, it is however a ‘proper’ size and is quite comfortable to use.

In use the radio is pretty much what you would expect from an entry level CB radio. No scan was a serious niggle, the lack of users on CB make a scan function very useful when you are driving about. The received audio is loud and mostly distortion free from the front firing speaker, and my transmitted audio was reported as “OK” to “good”, so no problems at least. The segmented 3 character LED display is a little bit easier to read at an angle or in bright sunlight than some of the newer LCD displays and the lack of signal strength meter is either ‘meh’ or a deal breaker, just depends on your personal preference I guess. While I’m driving, I don’t care what your signal strength reading is. As long as I can hear you, that’s all that is important.

The build quality is pretty much what you expect from these modern CB radios, on the inside it’s a mix of SMT components and old fashioned capacitors and pots. It all looks ‘reasonable’ and It works. It’s no Yaesu, Kenwood or Icom, but then what is?

When modified, it can do: 25.615-30.105 (25.610-30.110) and slightly more than 4W out.

Overall, it’s not bad for the money as long as you don’t need a scan function and aren’t prissy about needing signal meters.

2 Comments

  1. The capacitors down near the transformer on the right of the picture are always almost vented, ive seen this in this model plus other multi standard radios, show me an honest good one, with out the nasty crack and pop when you drop the key, most intek models suffer this, and some muti standard midlands, Danita and other multi standard sets, ive personally owned half a dozen dodgy radios like this, from new, from different suppliers, be aware of same chassis board in different model names / makes.

    In my electronics opinion total rubbish, 80 channel sets seem unaffected.

    • It works fine but it’s nothing special, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, this is pretty representative of ‘modern’ CB radios. You need to spend double what this unit costs to get something reasonable, but even then you aren’t guaranteed good build quality – just more buttons and dials.

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