There is a dude here who does that kind of stuff to radios. He can sit in his Suburban and talk to Australia. From Oahu. It's nuts. Anyway, he said that very few radios actually transmit 4 watts out of the box. He does tune and tweak radios to bring them up to that limit and to keep it legal, but is also willing to push them up to 25 watts plus, if the customer would like. Plus there is something he does to make it transmit "cleanly," whatever that means. I haven't submitted mine to him for service, because it does what I want it to do. However, before he even suggests tearing into a radio, he puts all kinds of meters (beyond the SWR) on the system to make sure the cabling, antenna, and antenna mount aren't causing problems. He isn't crazy about Jeeps because of the challenges with
ground plane . Which is why he has a Suburban. haha
Kevin