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i have a 2600 that is loosing power i run a good mobile antenna with a good match i had it set to 7 watts dead key and it would swing up to around 25 watts checked it last week and it was at 5 watts and only swinging up to 10 watts now its at 3 watts with 8 on a swing i know its a older radio so i was thinking finals what do you guys think ??????

Double check the antenna and all the coax connections to make sure something hasn't changed in the antenna system. It almost sounds like the radio is cutting back the output because of high SWR. Test it into a dummy load if you can to verify that the problem is the radio.

that's exactly what i was just going to go do at a friends shop.... will post outcome

well i checked it on the dummy load and it was fine it is set for 3 1/2 dead key and it has a swing of 20-25 watts on am and 30 on ssb and driving the box to 525-550 watts all is good !!!!

You better check your coax connectors and antennas, then. That's where your problem is.

i did and i still have a good match from the radio to the amp and after the amp every thing seems to be fine ???????

Check your mount and stud (or whatever you're using). A lot of times the stud or spring or whatever will start to come loose and wiggle around while you're driving down the road causing your connection to ground to be intermittant. That could cause something like this.

Did you get this solved?
Does it drop during xmit?

If so It may need to have an insulator installed between the final and the heatsink.
It is a common issue, the Chassi ground and Power ground meet at the uninsulated final mounting tab. I have seen this cause gradual loss of power during xmit and other strange things like High SWR with the covers off or on, and normal otherwise.

Remember to add heatsink compound to both sides of the insulator.

Roger