Most of them are very easy and the only reason he is charging so much is the old P.T. Barnum expression, "there is a sucker born every minute". Folks truly think radios have little wizards in them and these "radio whisperers" can magically defy the laws of physics. They are making a buck off folks who are non technically oriented and breaking their radios at the same time. The reason it is expensive is because people will pay it,
"peaking and tuning" generally refers to illegal increases in transmitter output power. And generally some person thinks they can magically improve the audio chain and really garble the output.
Truthfully, there can be some benefit to "tuning" the radio. Get a good service monitor and really look at your output. You can generally (if you can find a schematic) fine tune how the rig sounds and make sure that it puts out full power. Some come from the factory putting out only 2 watts. But you need to understand the relationship in power increase and "range". Most real radios use a formula of 6db per "S"unit on a calibrated meter. So for somebody to sound 1 S unit better (or pound or whatever the jargon is) you need to double your power.TWICE. So if you are using the legal 4 watt radio and the other feller is hearing you at an S-3, then going to 8 watts will make him hear you at S-3.5. 8 to 16 watts will get you to S-4. 16 to 32 watts will give and S-4.5 and going from 32 to 62 watts will get you to S-5.
NO CB transistors can do this. They would need to be replaced at this level. But folks never replace the guts that supply the transistors, so the whole radio is built on a garbage platform that cannot handle the new power demands. And the benefit is nil. Going from S-3 to S-5 is a rather small increase. For the receiving station, it will make VERY little difference. And another problem is the receive. You now have a limited receiver or an "alligator station". Getting a decent antenna can easily beat your massive power increase in transmit performance and will also provide the same for receive gain. PLUS, you won't be breaking any laws.
What a lot of folks do though is add some aftermarket kits that REALLY sacrifice audio quality for power output. Most of these radios use transistors for their output that are only rated for 10ish watts (since AM CBs are limited to 4 watts). Peaking generally overdrives these transistors to the point of failure which makes them "splatter" and transmit all over the place. This can easily be done by making the audio (what you say into the mic) "louder" inside the radio and therefore drive the transistors harder. The problem, as I have mentioned, is that it makes you sound like you are yelling into a truck stop toilet.
The other oddity that I don't understand is the idea of "swing". People think it is neat to have a radio deadkey at 5 watts and "swing" up to 30 watts. I have no idea where this came from, or why it is considered good. It makes the radios sound like ever loving garbage.
In all reality there are dozens of ways to peak and tune and ruin CBs, but NONE of them that I have seen are technically sound. If you really want to break the law, buy a HF ham radio and modify it for CB use. It will work better, sound better, and not splatter all over the HF spectrum. And it is just as illegal as "peaking and tuning" a CB. If you are really set on modifying CBs, a simple Google search will yield tons of info. What you will see however is 1,000 ideas on how and what to do, all by different folks. Wade through them carefully.
WM
