OK...little update. The 980 is in...and ran a few tests barefoot. Seems that its "OK" for local transmission. I'm not in a great area to test with other CB'ers. Next trip on the trans canada I can give it a test. I did manage to get out and chat with a few folks in Ohio on 38lsb..I'm in south central MB. Obviously DX..but running barefoot on an out of the box setup seemed pretty good.
Update to the update...got my RM505 hooked up. Its specs indicate 1-15w input on AM and 2-30w on SB...so I think running the 980 stock into it should be OK. I have tested it and on setting 3 (6 output settings) I was able to chat on SB about 30 miles out. Kept an eye on heat of the amp and seemed fine. Been getting out on DX pretty easy on 38 LSB also. I may still try some steel mesh under the cap setup... But more urgently I seem to be getting a lot of noise into the radio when the truck is running. Both the amp and radio have direct feeds to the battery...both pos&neg. Just wondering what I can do to fix this...there is a big difference between truck running and not running. I'm wondering if I can add caps to the power inputs on the amp and radio to try and filter out noise...
Update to the update...got my RM505 hooked up. Its specs indicate 1-15w input on AM and 2-30w on SB...so I think running the 980 stock into it should be OK. I have tested it and on setting 3 (6 output settings) I was able to chat on SB about 30 miles out. Kept an eye on heat of the amp and seemed fine. Been getting out on DX pretty easy on 38 LSB also. I may still try some steel mesh under the cap setup... But more urgently I seem to be getting a lot of noise into the radio when the truck is running. Both the amp and radio have direct feeds to the battery...both pos&neg. Just wondering what I can do to fix this...there is a big difference between truck running and not running. I'm wondering if I can add caps to the power inputs on the amp and radio to try and filter out noise...