Ok, I got my radio back from Rogerbird, if it hasn't been said enough to pound it into everybody's head by now, let me just say how great my radio sounds now. And he was great to deal with. Awesome, thank you Rogerbird.
So I bought a ST-65DX from Amazon, borrowed a RK-56 pre-barjan, and an Astatic 636.
I get great reports on the Skythumper. Audio is loud and clear. It does clear up the noise issues I have.
The Road King is a bit quieter, but still sounds good, and does a great job with the background noise.
The Astatic sounds tinny, just a little but enough to be noticed. It doesn't do as well as the other two with the background noise. However this is a post-barjan Astatic.
Thank you all for the responses, I got the ST-65DX based on your recommendations and am quite pleased with it. Especially for the 30 dollars with shipping I paid for it.
Next project will be adding channel up/down buttons to it.
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