Tuned cobra 29 or stock galaxy 959?

My suggestion would be to have the Cobra returned to stock so that the deadkey is within the limits set by the Palomar, and to *remove* the swing kit. If your barefoot signal is non-linear already (as a swing kit will induce), then using that as the input to an amplifier, *especially* one with no input or output tuning, the trash from the Cobra will just be stronger, ergo louder and heard farther away, both in distance and number of channels it occupies.
I'd take the money you can recover from having the Cobra made to stock again, set aside the Palomar, and put the money you have left over into increasing the counterpoise for the antenna on your vehicle so that you can approximate a resonant 50-ohm load for the radio. If you're in a plastic cab, even just using rubber cement to bond aluminum foil to the inside of the roof (or copper foil if $$$ is no object) and making sure the "ground" side of the antenna mount makes good contact with the foil, f'r instance with a couple of long-ish bolts, fender washers against the foil, then a lockwasher and regular nut.
If you're blessed with a metal roof, put the tallest antenna you can fit (per either the law or the overpasses you must be able to clear) in the center of the roof. You'll be miles ahead of where everyone with the Super Whizbang 9000 watt amp and oversized coax to a pair of bullhorned whips 5 feet apart and mounted to the window mounts on a Fibreglas® cab.

Galaxy used to make decent ham gear, but current users of their CB line seem to acknowledge that the oversized meter is offset by mechanical weaknesses, i.e., a tendency to rattle apart when subjected to the stresses of the roadways. I find the Cobras easier to operate without taking my eyes off the road, but I also operate a Morse key strapped to my leg, so my frame of reference may be somewhat different than most.

Ya spends yer money and ya takes yer chances....but you can't cheat physics.
73

 

Sorry, now you're out of my bailiwick. Nothing in this place is even borderline unlawful, if you don't count the EF Johnson Viking I with matching VFO that covers most of the frequencies between 1.7 and 35 MHz. But it's on 40m and 80m most of the time. If you've got enough posts (looks like you do) I'd see about putting it up on the "For Sale" thread. Or the Craigslist that covers where you spend lots of time. The eBay Nazis are always looking for stuff like that to pull and make you forfeit your listing fee.

Mayhap someone more knowledgeable in the wide & wonderful world of marginally performing (yet patently unlawful) stuff for sale who can at least give you a starting point for a price tag.

Hope I didn't spoil the experience for you; life *can* be fun without an amp as long as your signal is clean and, most importantly, you have a solid antenna system.

Hope to work you farther down the log. If you get to where I-40 crosses I-77, give a yodel for Handlebar.
73

 

Personally, I'd stay away from any radio with a so-called "swing kit".

 

An over-modulated "swing kit" radio and a splatter box together spells lots of harmonic interference... Would love to see that combo on a spectrum analyzer LOL

 

Have him count to 20 on both radios and tune your radio up & down the dial from, say, a mile away. If you can hear the noise from him counting (you'll recognize the cadence of the counting, if not the actual words) up and down the dial by more than one channel, he's overmodulating on that radio. One may be worse than the other, and both may actually be putting all their energy onto the channel that he's got dialed up. If the latter is the case, then your only problem is getting popped by some RF Nazi for being overpowered. Keep in mind that neither receiver is substantially better than a stock CB radio; after all, they're both made for 10 meters and get retuned for CB, so unless a tech *also* peaks the receiver for CB, your receiver will actually be *worse* than a stock CB. At that point, with either the Connex or the Galaxy, you'll have a receiver that's too numb to hear a basic CB at reasonable distance, yet a transmitter that will get a signal out way past the stations that you can hear just at the fringe of your receiver's range.
Just a caution to be aware of as you go shopping.
73 & good luck with your purchase.