Unit456 new to CB Junkies

[222FL]

No worries. With an 8 pill you my have to upgrade your alternator to a larger amperage one. Somewhere near 300 amps total. About 15-20 amps per 100 watts is a good number to go by. So if you are running a kW of power, 200 amps would be needed to have a bit of head room. Then the batteries. Everyone uses different batts, I like the Deka line of batteries that are sold at batteries plus. They are branded under the Duracell name as well as Deka. The 2 batts I used back in the day were each 150AH batts that weighed about 125lbs each. These are used for commercial cell sites for battery back up use. I paid a pretty penny for 2 of them back in the day. Don't have those anymore but do have one 170AH battery left. Here is what it looks like.
This is a 170AH battery and with 2 like this I was able to use stock alternator in my jeep Cherokee and run an 8 pill setup. Voltage never dropped below 13.8vdc even when on the key for a while! This was back in my AM days and I ran a 1x2 driving an 8 pill.
With all this said, with your current setup I would look into a straight 8 pill amp. But like I said it takes some amperage to use one properly. You might be able to make it work with a good battery bank and stock alternator, but I doubt it. My jeep Cherokee was an 89 and it didn't have much for electronics. So my 2 150AH batts was enough to hold the voltage with the 8 pill. But it won't be cheap to get 300 amps of good batteries. Not CCA shit either, I mean real Amp Hours. The batt in the pic below will hold a 170amp load for 8hrs without much drop in voltage. At or near the 8hr point you will see a spike in voltage then a decrease as the batteries become drained. They are not cheap batteries.
As you can see the one battery I have costs about $500 a piece shipped. But these aren't your everyday battery either.
At any rate. Not sure how attached you are to the Galaxy 98vhp, but with that radio you will have a hard time using it with any amp smaller than an 8 pill IMO, as it just is too much power for anything smaller.
You may be better off either using the 98vhp in another vehicle or getting rid of it for a different radio. For what it is worth a good 4 pill amp and a single or dual final radio would be your best bet in order to keep the alternator stock and add a couple batts like you plan. With an 8 pill you are talking about a lot more amp draw and I am about 110% pos. That your stock alt. won't handle an 8 pill unless maybe you have one heck of a battery bank kind of like what I showed you. Doesn't have to be the same batts as what I showed you but you want batteries that show the AH rating and not CCA (cold cranking amps), as these batts are only seeing a heavy load at start up. Your alternator takes over after the vehicle is started. Make sense. Hopefully I'm not babbling on.
Anyway, do some research and you'll understand why I say that a good 4 pill setup might be your best option without having to get larger alternator and such. Look into a 4 pill Dave made or Xforce amp and a good radio to run with it. I use an optima mk3 and a TNT 600hd and get anywhere from 4-500 watts pep out my amp. Granted my amp has Toshiba 2879's which are a bit more rugged than most of the newer transistors of the same type. I have actually seen 6-700 watts out of the amp with some drive. But now I loaf it along at about 400 watts and it gets me out just fine.
But if you are really intent on getting one, an 8 pill amp that is, look into a larger amp alternator and a good batt bank like what you are planning. JMHO, and what I have learned from past experience. Hope some of this helps. Good luck with whatever you do and keep it clean and mean!!

[Unit456]

No worries. With an 8 pill you my have to upgrade your alternator to a larger amperage one. Somewhere near 300 amps total. About 15-20 amps per 100 watts is a good number to go by. So if you are running a kW of power, 200 amps would be needed to have a bit of head room. Then the batteries. Everyone uses different batts, I like the Deka line of batteries that are sold at batteries plus. They are branded under the Duracell name as well as Deka. The 2 batts I used back in the day were each 150AH batts that weighed about 125lbs each. These are used for commercial cell sites for battery back up use. I paid a pretty penny for 2 of them back in the day. Don't have those anymore but do have one 170AH battery left. Here is what it looks like.
This is a 170AH battery and with 2 like this I was able to use stock alternator in my jeep Cherokee and run an 8 pill setup. Voltage never dropped below 13.8vdc even when on the key for a while! This was back in my AM days and I ran a 1x2 driving an 8 pill.
With all this said, with your current setup I would look into a straight 8 pill amp. But like I said it takes some amperage to use one properly. You might be able to make it work with a good battery bank and stock alternator, but I doubt it. My jeep Cherokee was an 89 and it didn't have much for electronics. So my 2 150AH batts was enough to hold the voltage with the 8 pill. But it won't be cheap to get 300 amps of good batteries. Not CCA shit either, I mean real Amp Hours. The batt in the pic below will hold a 170amp load for 8hrs without much drop in voltage. At or near the 8hr point you will see a spike in voltage then a decrease as the batteries become drained. They are not cheap batteries.
As you can see the one battery I have costs about $500 a piece shipped. But these aren't your everyday battery either.
At any rate. Not sure how attached you are to the Galaxy 98vhp, but with that radio you will have a hard time using it with any amp smaller than an 8 pill IMO, as it just is too much power for anything smaller.
You may be better off either using the 98vhp in another vehicle or getting rid of it for a different radio. For what it is worth a good 4 pill amp and a single or dual final radio would be your best bet in order to keep the alternator stock and add a couple batts like you plan. With an 8 pill you are talking about a lot more amp draw and I am about 110% pos. That your stock alt. won't handle an 8 pill unless maybe you have one heck of a battery bank kind of like what I showed you. Doesn't have to be the same batts as what I showed you but you want batteries that show the AH rating and not CCA (cold cranking amps), as these batts are only seeing a heavy load at start up. Your alternator takes over after the vehicle is started. Make sense. Hopefully I'm not babbling on.
Anyway, do some research and you'll understand why I say that a good 4 pill setup might be your best option without having to get larger alternator and such. Look into a 4 pill Dave made or Xforce amp and a good radio to run with it. I use an optima mk3 and a TNT 600hd and get anywhere from 4-500 watts pep out my amp. Granted my amp has Toshiba 2879's which are a bit more rugged than most of the newer transistors of the same type. I have actually seen 6-700 watts out of the amp with some drive. But now I loaf it along at about 400 watts and it gets me out just fine.
But if you are really intent on getting one, an 8 pill amp that is, look into a larger amp alternator and a good batt bank like what you are planning. JMHO, and what I have learned from past experience. Hope some of this helps. Good luck with whatever you do and keep it clean and mean!!

Thank you very much. I appreciate all your assistance. I will indeed research as you have advised. And your suggestion of the 4 pill sounds good and as a starter for me until I learn move of this new hobby I have acquired makes plenty of sense. so I am going to take your advise and move slowly until I get the basics in order before making any irrational decisions. I looked at the 980 and it has some good reports. I will look for a better antenna that has better power handling capabilities as well as take a look at the TNT also.

I will re-work my ground system and antenna first and see what I can improve there with what I have while making a decision on the radio and amp.

I will keep in touch and let you know how it goes.

Thanks, again and 73"s
Happy Holidays
Unit456