SWR

You should always have an SWR meter no matter what radio you have.

 

Yes, you should. They're cheap enough...

http://www.amazon.com/METER-Radio-Antennas-Jumper-cable/dp/B002KRME3C

 

Thank you Ms Jamie i JUST BOUGHT IT.

 

Ditto to what my learned colleagues have already posted.
An SWR bridge is a good piece of diagnostic gear to keep around to help optimize a new antenna installation. It's worth jotting down the reading someplace when the install is first done.
That way, if your radio suddenly seems to not work as well as it used to (or even gradually) you'll have someplace to start looking. Remember that, big radio or small, the antenna affects both transmit and receive performance. If the SWR is greatly different from when it was installed start looking for pinched coax or corroded connections, or even a missing top section top whip
And even though it's not an $800 antenna analyzer, it'll still give you a good idea of "better than..." and "worse than..." kinda measurements, with values that should be repeatable for that meter in the future. You may get different SWR reading on the same antenna system between different "value priced" meters, but for the same meter on the same system, a lower SWR should be reliably taken as correct.
Otherwise, generally any SWR lower than 2.0:1 is fine, and anything under 1.5:1 is great. The meter that MsJamie would be fine for tuning antennas and detecting most kinds of feedline failures.

 

i have that same meter. works good.

 

Your radio is no less "powerful" then any other cobra radio hat comes off the assembly line. Heck that goes for any CB radio. They all do some were between 3 1/2 watts to 4 watts. Your radio will suffer the same fate as any other CB radio if the antenna system is not up to par and the system shows and SWR above 2.5 or 3:1 which is a burnt out final transistor.

If you don't want to buy an SWR meter then find a CB shop that will check the SWR for you and possibly fix any issues with the antenna and coax setup.