type of antaina

I have a Wilson 2000 also on a company truck. Should handle your 50 watts easy enough. Noise level may be a little higher with the stainless steel antenna than your old fiberglass. Best I have used so far.

 

I agree a Wilson 2000

 

A Wilson 2000 and NOT the factory coax has always done great for my Galaxy...Get the SWR set and it is good to go.

 

The general rules apply regardless of the output power: for an antenna that's resonant at the frequency (or freq range) you need, the longer and higher you can get it, over the greatest area of metal that's parallel to the road surface at the same height as where your mount is fastened, the better. If you must settle for an antenna that is physically shortened from around 105 inches, the farther from the antenna's base the coil is, the greater the "fieid strength" of the transmitted signal, because coils do not radiate.Those are just some of the basic general principles, but there is solid physics behind them. There is also lots of advertising hype, plus nearly every operator has some favorite that he/she/it has used religiously (and successfully) under empirical conditions and will swear is the best. That's fine; there are many ways of making a compromise antenna perform "well enough" that a purchaser who has just plunked down $159 fof a 5-foot antenna with a coil the size of on oatmeal box won't dare admit my $19.95 Radio Shack whip is outperforming him.
To the OP: if your existing radio system is working, I do not understand your question. Has the performance dropped off as of late? If so, I'd be wary of the "happy watts" you were told it is producing. If it has had the services of a Golden Screwdriver who tuned it with nothing more than an inexpensive wattmeter and a series of loud whistles into the mic, all the while hooked to an antenna instead of a proper dummy load, then most of the power above about 15-18 watts ia almost certainly spurs & harmonics. If that's the case, your original question may be the result of the horrendous SWR you're now getting, and that no amount of antenna length changing will rectify, because you're now transmitting on more than one band. If your SWR suddenly got terrible when your Galaxy's output quadrupled, try just plugging in a box-stock CB and check the SWR; if it's OK then, your Galaxy needs to get un-butchered.
Hope that helps some without getting off too far on a tangent.
73,

 

Use what you have there fine for a stock radio.

 

The main reason I went to stainless over fiberglass was due to the abuse the antenna takes all day long every day. Between tree strikes, bird hits, ice buildup and just whipping around in the wind all day the fiberglass ones just don't hold up. I finally threw away a pile of fiberglass antennas that were snapped off etc.

Snother reason for the switch was the tuneability of the stainless over the fiberglass style. Some fiberglass antennas require adjusting the coax length to get them to tune properly. Francis comes to mind for this. This is the wrong way to go about tuning an antenna.

 

If at all possible check your SWRs with an SWR meter, the ones on the CB radio are not all that accurate but are good for getting a ballpark idea of your SWRs only. Also even though I run a Wilson 2000, the setup you have now is a very good one. Most grain haulers in my area run your same setup and have excellent results.