Need advise on increasing power. Quad 5 10M radio

If I hear a guy on a stock Cobra 29 driving an International with Factory antennas 30 miles away and I'm unable to hear his partner driving the same truck for the same company with a thousand watt radio and Browning antennas until I come within a 7 mile range Common Sense dictates which one works better . I'm just going by what I've experienced.
Factory antennas are basically the same thing as a Firestik for the most part. A piece of fiberglass with a piece of copper wire wrapped around it and a piece of shrink tubing to keep moisture out.

 

There's A Real Fine Line between a bone stock radio and a fine-tuned radio

 

I've been working 14 hour days and driving 2 hours each way to and from the customer for this assignment. Just tired

So needless to say, I have little to add right now until Sunday.

 

My buddy Jerry made that quick mount for Bob.
I hope Bob wasn't the guy that tuned your radio because I have a wonderful experience to share with you.
A buddy of mine works for R&L Carriers out of Pittston PA terminal. I bought him a brand new Cobra 29 Chrome Edition. Installed it in his truck with a Francis 5 foot antenna and a vice grip antenna mount.
No human hands have been inside that radio since it left the factory at this point in time. My buddies coming back from Akron Ohio doing a drop and hook heading back eastbound on Interstate 80 and he calls me to see where I'm at and which direction I'm going and it just so happens that I'm going westbound. We estimate our meeting point and about 30 minutes before I get to that point I start shouting for him. Shortly thereafter I heard him yelling for me and I asked him what mile marker he was located at. I don't remember the mile marker but I do remember he was 15 miles out.
The radio sounded great with his Road King microphone. 2 days later he decides to pay Bob a visit to get the world-famous "stage 2" tune up.
A couple days later I'm sitting at the Pilot truck stop in Pittston Pennsylvania and my buddy called me on the phone and ask me where I'm located. I told him I was at the pilot getting a cup of coffee and he told me he was about 10 minutes away coming up the turnpike. He also told me he got Bob's famous tune up. I was kind of depressed because I knew what was about to happen. A couple minutes later I barely heard an unfamiliar muffled sounding voice yelling for me.
I asked who is that calling me? Turned out it was my buddy with Bob's famous tune up 2 miles away. He was just coming through the cash box at the Pittston exit.
I told my buddy to pull over to the side of the road and let all the truck drivers at the truck stops hear what his radio sounded like and I told him to switch over to his fine-tuned General Lee that Mark Sherman tuned for him.
Everybody told him that Cobra 29 sounded like crap and he needed to get his money back. There were a few guys at the truck stop that couldn't even hear him talking that's how weak his signal was. When he switched over to his fine-tuned General Lee the difference was like night and day. He was pegging my needle and he sounded like he was sitting in a recording studio talking into an Electro Voice re20 microphone.A bunch of drivers offered to buy the General Lee from him if he decided to sell it. Crystal Clear quality audio and he was hitting me in the red with the General Lee but he was barely moving my needle with the Cobra 29 that Bob did his famous tune on. I hope you didn't spend too much money on that tune.
Bone stock with a crappy antenna system I could hear him 15 miles away and after Bob's famous expensive tune I could barely hear him two miles away and I was hardly able to understand him.

 

First,get rid of the antennas and run a single one like the predator10k,duals aren't that great.Ever see a key down comp nobody uses duals.Second get a good coax and three you could of gotten a cobra 29 and a amp and it would shutdown any export again look at what they use at key downs Cobras and unidens also you can get the receive almost as good as an export.My best setup in a truck was a cobra29 driven by a davemade 2 pill driving an 8 pill with a davemade antenna followed by same cobra with a Texas star 667v.

 

The funny thing is Bob wouldn't know a decent antenna if it smacked him in the face and he's got several in his shop he just doesn't recognize their potential

 

2 Is better than 1.
8 is even better.
Keep in mind this is a trucker forum. Trucks need more help than a chevy Suburban.
More gain front to rear means I can hear and talk further than someone using a single element on a tractor trailer.
Can't compare a car or suburban to a tractor trailer.

 

I've owned a few different brand linear amps, and found them all to be more of a waste of money rather than a long distance calling card. HAM's please jump in on these numbers if I'm wrong... but if I remember right you have to double your output for every S unit gain (4,8,16,32,64 etc.) You can imagine the numbers get exponentially out of control just for that 1 extra S unit, and @ nearly $1/watt so does the bankroll.

On top of that, any amp you find built for CB use is built off the same dirty design. And I question how many of the watts are wasted splattering over the adjacent channels? You buy a 250-300 watt amp for a theoretical 2 S gain, but 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 of that is all wasted in splatter... so now you need 500 watts to make up that difference and so on. <--- I'm interested to know what the true numbers actually are if anyone here has tested them?

I'm not a hater like the above may sound, just been there done that. In fact I still have a couple amps laying around. But it did me no good to spend money on out talking my ears for the vast majority of CBers. Now if everyone would spend the same attention you are on getting out and focus that on a good CB shop that will properly tune it, we'd all be better off.

Having said all that, The amps I've had were all well made, with the same basic 'made in someone's garage' look... because many of them were and still are. <-- That is not a slam on any of them, they all seem to take pride in their craftsmanship. Not once have I ever taken an amp in for a bad solder issue. And I give props to Texas Star for keeping their name so prominent over the years, but for me I don't have a favourite. The two I have are X-Force brand and have only kept them around because a friend of a friend built them. Beyond that, the only other suggestion I can offer is 400-500 watts is about the limit before installs and money vs performance gained gets into ridiculous territory.

 

That's it! I'll never patronize Bob's CB shop again.