I was given this radio by a friend of mine as I have Shown much interest in the world of cb and he is also invested in it and has been for years. I bought an IMAX 2000 and have it temporarily erected on an aluminum pole beside my house. I hooked up my SWR meter and the swr meter pegs out when I key the mic. The rf and swr meter built into the radio also stay constantly pegged and move very slightly when I move the calibrate knob. I know the extremely high swr is not my antenna because I hooked up a little Uniden 510xl to check to see if I had a problem with my antenna and the swr was below 1.5:1 on all channel and was almost a 1.0 on channel one. So my question is what is the deal with the rci 2990? I have very minimal experience with radios so treat me as if I know nothing. Sorry for the long winded post. If I have left anything out feel free to ask. Thanks in advance for the replies.