That is a good thing though, not blowing anything that is. Have the radio looked at. May be just too much mic gain as well. This can cause squeal as well as RF coming back down coax or a bad ground. Not saying you have anything wrong and if it's working now with a different radio then good deal. I understand wanting it to look good, but having it operate correctly is probably more important lol. Glad you pulled radio and didn't keep keying it up. Like I said if that is an older Texas Star 400 with Toshiba 2290's then man don't over drive it!!! The Galaxy 33 is a single final radio and won't overdrive it for sure. If you want SSB, get yourself a uniden 980 off amazon for $107 dollars and you'll have a good cb/SSB radio that can work with just about any amp. Get the dead key turned down and modulation turned up. Leave SSB power at stock levels and add a heat sink or fan if heat becomes an issue. I would venture to say that with the 980 and the TS400 you have you could have a clean, clear sounding station and also have piece of mind knowing you won't blow the amp or amps that you have up by over driving them. JMHO. The Galaxy 33 should work well for now at least on AM. I've used a galaxy 55 with my palomar 250 and it worked well together. Radio was stock, no limiters clipped or anything, and I used a 1.5 watt dead key into the amp which keyed it at about 40 watts. Then let it swing to about 150 watts. Don't think because the front of it says 250 that you'll get 250 watts out of it either, 99.9% of the numbers placed on the front of amps or the claims made are exaggerated. Besides no one will tell the differnence on the receiving end between 150 and 250 watts or even 300 to 400 watts. It takes at just at 4 times the power to get an s-unit more receive with power increase. So you'd have to go to 1000 watts from 250 and to 1600 watts from 400 to gain anything. You wanna keep your amp cool use a good single final radio with the TS400 and keep the input wattage down. Especially the pep wattage. Key up amp at 1/4 total power. So if amp does 300 watts, max carrier of 75 watts with amp keyed up. I still think this is too much dead key for the ts400, try it at lowest rf power setting you can and get amp to key up. Speak into mic with a constant tone or work like "audio" and see what the amps pep wattage is. There are also phone apps that allow you to inject a proper tone into mic as well. Just some food for thought. Get the pep wattage and then set DK accordingly. Also like said before, may want to try a longer bottom shaft on that sirio antenna. Will keep it straighter as you go down highway. Get a 17" or 24" bottom section and try them. Also using a Wilson whip with the longer bottom shaft will make a stiffer antenna. The straighter and higher you can keep the center load on your truck the better in this case. I'll try to dig up the thread by fourstringburn that he made showing the install and review of the sirio 5000 trucker antenna. He seemed quite pleased once done with it. Anyway have a good day and have fun dxing if there is even any. Was dead as a door nail yesterday durning the day. Had to check my coax to make sure it was plugged in LOL. Again, good luck with whatever you decide.
