Are you thinking this because of the SWR issue (that may have been resolved by removing the lightning arrestor temporarily) or because of the new reports of the SSB modulation starting to get choppy/crackly despite no changes to any of the hardware or setup?
How are the watts? Have you noticed a drop? I'm thinking that because of both issues. Why is there ferrite on the coax? That's going to cause issues because it's going to attempt to "trap" your signal. I'd be willing to bet the ferrite gets hot as the door hinges of hell when you transmit.
New Carl Built base 1x4. All 2879’s. Very clean audio, great reports. Everyone says it sounds wicked. And the preamp is the best I’ve ever heard. Very happy with it. Works great with all my single final and tube radios.
No noticeable change in wattage but I run the amp on the conservative side. I put the ferrite on the coax because I was reading about some signal backwash/harmonics possibly being a cause and a suggested step is to install one or more ferrites preferably where the coax connects to the antenna (not currently possible/reachable in my case) or close to where the coax connects to the end of the equipment chain (my Daiwa CN-901 in my case). The ferrite and coax under it are the same temperature as the rest of the coax, basically room temperature.
