ya got it,, all seems good,, am is very loud, ssb sounds good. stock mic works good with the radio. i don't like how the variable power works, it only lowers the dead key on am but still swings to full power, and on ssb it turns the power almost completely off,, the manual says to use the mic gain to control ssb power,
i still like the optima mk3 better for ssb, optima is 5khz is the default freq change, and the variable power works on am and ssb and it has the ssb filter, but for the price the magnum 257 seems to be a very good radio
also something odd, I plugged the magnum into the same p/s and antenna that I use with the optima mk3 and the local that I talk to all the time said my signal was down about 2 s-units, (he didn't know I was trying a different radio),, odd because the magnum on my meter seems to do about 20 watts more than the optima on ssb,,, but who knows I didn't do a back to back test so it may have been conditions/weather,, not sure