Rookie Cobra 29 question?

I have a Cobra 29 NW ST that has been "peeked and Tuned " by two different shops. I have a Preditor 10K ant. with an Astatic mic, 18ft coax and a P-250 kicker. All was matched up at last shop. Seems to work fine but I can still only get out on average, 2 miles. Everyone says it sounds Loud and Clear but don't understand why I can't get out further.

My question for this thread is this: My power/SWR meter seems to work fine durring normal operation but if I try to set my SWR's the meter will not swing all the way to the CAL posistion. I thought I had a problem with my Antenna so I swaped it out with a Wilson Silver load and same thing, swaped out the coax, same thing. When I disconnect my coax and connect the trucks coax with dual antenna setup the meter will swing to the CAL posistion but will not swing past the 3 going left. When I say Swing I mean when I turn the SWR dial. Does my meter do this because it had work done to it? What work would cause this? OR, is there something seriously wrong with my setup?

Thanks for any info.
SGT Hill

 

Thanks all,

I had a Roger Beep put in mine also, had it changed to a "fart" sound and was thinking today that maybe that is the problem.

 

It was fine until I had the last guy work on it at the Detroiter in MI. It is set up for a kicker as well. It works fine but just doesn't get out as far as I would like to...
Thanks all.
Sgt Hill