You know how you CB has an RF gain and mic gain knob??? The 2950 has what you probably call "dial a watt" it has two in one type pot'ss so their is in inside knob and an outside knob. So you can turn the RF output power down from the front right of the face. Depending on how you set it up after alignment that will determine where you set the knob. If the cover has not been off the radio and no one has messed around with the stock settings all the way to the left 7 O'Clock will be 1 watt low dead key and will swing to about 7-12 watts and 12 O'Clock 7-10 watt's dead key swinging to 20-25 watts on am. 5 O'clock will get you a dead key about 4-5 watt's off PEP with it swinging the rest of the way. For normal talking with out the amp keep it in the 12 O'Clock position and let it swing. Now if someone peaked the radio while aligning it then you will have to hook a meter up to see where you are at. All radio's vary madly after a peak and align with regard to what they read in each position of the knob because component output on mass produced radio's is all over the place. I have 2950's pre-DX model vary by as much as 10-15 watt's on PEP from radio to radio.
Now if that amp has not had the swamping circuit undon then yes it will take all the power that radio can put out then some. If it has been modified not to need 50-100 watts of drive then no it will not handle all the power that radio can put out.
A sloppy way to adjust the power in aka drive wattage is to hook your linear into your dummy load or antenna. Set another radio on the bench on a separate power supply. Do not hook an antenna up to the receive radio. Now talk into your RCI and listen to how you sound on the receive radio. Keep turning up the power until you start to sound just slightly fuzzy now back it off 10-20 degree's and try again....Do you sound good or is it still fuzy? If you sound good back it off another 5 degree's and mark that position with a tiny white paint pen making a dot. That should work nicely for AM and SSB you might be able to hit her harder on SSB but really why risk sounding like a splater box or like you have a mouth full of cotton. If you want more power then go to a larger amp. I am partial to the 667 and 500HD as the perfect compromise between power output and reasonable current draw fro non-modified car.
I think it goes with out saying that to take advantage of the broad band 10,11,12m of the RCI 2950 you need an antenna that has god broad band characteristical. The monster antenna like Money Made, Workman copy and the other's like them are very broad band. Believe it not on the right vehicle like a Pickup truck or SUV the old school 102 Whip really holds it own with regard to being broad band. I went through a lot of antenna and the only two I found that did a good job in being able to present a nice to decent SWR where Monkey Made types and the 102 inch stainless steel whip.
I tried K40 the origanal, firestick,francis,Willison 5000, Wilson silver load Monkey made type but I do not know the manufacture now since this was back in the early 1990's and a 102 inch whip. The last two worked the best.
10 and 11 can work off the same antenna with out much fuss but 12 meter usually does not do so well. It is hit and miss the more metal and the better the ground the better they seem to do on 12m but the swr will still start to climb rather quickly.....My SWR according to MFJ and Heathkit was flat from one end of the old RCI 2950 band width all the way to the other with a 102 inch whip. They did not have 12m built into them back then. The two worst antenna's I have tried with regard to band width they can cover was the Wilson 5000 and the Firestick they could did terrible going from 11m to 10meter unless I adjusted them for each and. Two be fair I even tried the 7 foot firestick at the time so I can only imagine how the shorter tunable tip models would do?!
