Batboard

Hello, The question that I have is I have a radio that is rated for 2 watts of power and I removed the coiled type antenna and replaced it with a Motorola RAN4041A RDX Series Replacement VHF 6" Antenna (146-174 MHz) that is rated for 4 watts to 5 watts of power. The factory settings on the radio is set to 2 watts of power and the new antenna I placed on the radio is worse in transmit and receive. Do I need to go into the settings and make the change to 5 watts of power to get better range?

Probably the wrong antenna for that radio.

Most portable radio antennas are rated at least 5 watts.

You did not mention what the radio's model was.

As the saying goes ther is no such thing as a free lunch. To make the antenna wide band enough to cover that entire frequency range gain was sacrificed. It is wide banded because it is a rubber dummy load.

Not sure what you mean by "It is wide banded because it is a rubber dummy load" Please explain, thanks.

A dummy load is a resister in a heat dissipating case that allows you to test a transmitter by acting as a non radiating matched loading device. Wide band width antennas have components molded in then to give a good match to the transmitter that themselves are wasters of rf energy.