I know little about ballasts and just need one available online that will properly drive an FC8T9 22 watt fluorescent lamp. id like it to be preheat (but with an external starter), so something like the robertson 3P10041 will not work for me because it has an integrated starter. Thanks in advance.

From my experience, I have had beautiful results with running 8 inch 22W circline fluorescent lamps on Advance LC-25-TP preheat fluorescent reactor ballasts. When running at the correct 120V 60Hz supply they are rated for, I have seen them draw roughly 25W or so with ballast losses included and also draw somewhere around 360mA without a power factor correction capacitor, which is close to the 380mA lamp current required of them at least in North American terms.

Here is one on eBay for a pretty cheap price:

https://ebay.us/m/eAnMcB

I have known about them being a pretty good choice because  I have understood 8 inch 22W circline fluorescent lamps to have similar electrical characteristics to the F20T12 fluorescent tube and have read accounts of collectors saying that the Advance LC-25-TP reactor ballasts were able to properly power F20T12 fluorescent tubes.

Agree with F20T12, did some promising calculations in Discord, don't feel like repeating them here lol.

Here is a link to the ballast that @WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA reccomends:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/157608346025

Here is a link to a cheaper more generic F20T12 ballast, results may vary:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/186408657366

It is good to note that the more generic “14-20W” preheat fluorescent reactor ballasts have a tendency to underpower F20T12 tubes and 8 inch 22W circline fluorescent lamps.

Yeah I had a feeling, I have no idea what impedance they are. 14W needs 275 ohms, 20W needs 240 ohms (ideally), that is kind of a big difference. 275 ohms could underdrive this lamp 20%. I assume it is somewhere in the middle.

awesome, thank you!