Can ya hear me? Hell I don't know

I think the best thing you can do right now is find another radio operator, especially a friend, and do some testing on a quiet channel. See where that gets you. If you are not satisfied with the results, we can begin some diagnosis and then some tweaking.

 

If the mangling of the antenna broke the wire in the antenna it would change the resonant frequency of the antenna. If the wire in the antenna is still making intermittent connections it would cause variance in performance. The mangling could also allow water inside the antenna also affecting it's performance.

 

True, that is one possibility. Or, the antennas might be part of a poorly installed factory set up. Or, the old radio has intermittent problems. The list goes on and on.

Since OP says he isn't the most experienced with CBs, it might be a waste of time to suggest solutions yet. I used to get frustrated with my set up before I tested it with a friend. Some days, I couldn't make any contacts. After testing, I learned my set up easily got out 5 miles in a dense suburban area--not too bad for my expectations. Had I not done my testing, I would be stressing out with the wrong solutions, none which address how to get more people on the air more consistently.

 

To find out how much power you're putting out, you need to put the radio on a dummy load (like a Cantenna) with a calibrated watt meter (like a Bird meter) in between the radio and the dummy load.

Don't use a Dosy meter, they're notoriously inaccurate.

No idea what type of antennas you have but as a rule, fiberglass antennas suck. Mostly because they coil up most of the wire which hinders transmit and receive. They do this to make them physically shorter but again it's a huge compromise.

You want the best antenna you can get with the least amount of load coil. I prefer Sirio 5000 antennas. They're 6 ft tall and a normal CB antenna is 9 ft so that's essentially 3 ft antenna in the load coil. Not the best but beats the pants off of a 4 ft Firestick/Frances antenna from the Flying J.

You also need a low swr of 1.5:1. A 2.0:1 is OK. Anything.more is eating your signal.

You may want to have your radio bench checked to ensure its working right and that the contacts in the mic switch haven't corroded, etc. Just don't let them in your radio with a pair of diagonal cutters or a screwdriver towards those pots or the little copper coils in the back. Unless you want a splattering radio like 90% of the ones out there.

 

As mentioned before, you need to get a friend with a radio to see what yours is doing. Depending on strangers who might or might not have their radios on your frequency is no test at all.

 

I have had radios meter show full scale transmit power then hook up an swr meter and find antenna system way out of recommended range. Correct swr issues and found transmit power level indicated by meter drops. Meter in radio not always accurate.