Help me with an amp please.

F 350. I moded the inside of the glove box. It's in there now.

 

Nothing wrong with a Cobra 25...Just saying "IF" that radio is really doing those numbers, it's not going to last very long...I doubt seriously it's doing any where near that tho...Got to watch what you see on those CB Shop meter's...Most are not anywhere near being calibrated right...They have them set to show "Feel Good watts"... I would test it with a different meter.

 

You can pick up a swr/power meter and a small jumper coax at radio shack that is close to accurate.

 

Radio Shacks use to have a decent meter like picklechips said, but they are re-doing their inventory now, and I highly doubt you'll find anything CB related there now...

Check the on-line CB stores (cb city, gi joes, custom cb, etc.) or most truck stops will have some swr/power meters for sale.. I would stay away from buying a used meter, specially the ones on ebay...

"Buy New".

 

A lot of radio shacks are glorified cell phone stores now but I found one last week at one of my local stores or you can order it online here

http://m.radioshack.com/radioshack/...hack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2036239"

 

You can type in your zip code and see if any Radio Shacks in your area has one...Just for giggles, I typed in my zip and found that out of all the Radio Shack stores in the Dallas area...3 stores actually say they have 1 in stock!

 

Before you even consider buying an amp you need to find out what the radio is really doing dont trust run of the mill cb shops as they can make that meter do some unrealistic readings if it is doing 30 watts deadkey then they changed a lot of things in that radio a normal 25 tuned and peaked you can get 12-14 watts max deadkey that said a cobra 25 is a good radio to run with an amp when matched correctly with an amp.

 

NB trucking, depends on what kind of amp you want to run.....

A 2 pill amp you need to have the carrier dropped to 2 watts or less.....

A 4 pill or bigger you might be able to get by with a 4 watt carrier....

And I agree with the others, if your radio really modulates to 25-30 watts, it's on borrowed time...because it means some nut bag has hacked your radio. That's probably why it was free.....because they knew it was only a matter of time. How much you wanna bet they didn't spread the trap coils or clipped the modulation limiter?

A properly working radio has what we call the "1 to 4" rule....meaning 1 carrier watt to every 4 modulation watts.

Your radio, if set correctly, should dead key at 4 watts and modulate to 16....tops. Anything more than that you're overmodulating. Anything less than that and you'll sound like the guy in the back of the room trying to talk to everyone in the foreground.