I got a cobra 29 and have had it for several years now...works great and has the weather bands on it

as far as an external speaker my solution cost me less than 5 bucks and a set of tweeters i had in the garage...i went to radio shack and got a mono plug that you can solder your own wire to...i put the tweeter in the door by the stock speaker and ran speaker wire to it...several of the guys i run around with have bought external speakers and haven't heard any that are as loud as mine is (can run down the highway at 80 with the window down and it's still loud and clear)