"Brian" wrote in message hlink.net...
Do any of you guys run your radio equipment on battery power? I was just
considering this approach as an alternative to the noisy house mains. Would
like something I could use permantly inside that can be recharged from house
current. Does anyone have any suggestions? Is this a feasible idea?


-Brian

I use two Panasonic 12V 20 Amp Hour Gell Cells to power my radio
equipment. I wish I had a R75, but I only have a R2000 and a
DX398. I found a Lambda 5A adjustable power supply at the local
mil surplus outlet for $10.00. I adjusted the output for 13.6V
as suggested on the side of the Gell Cell for use in standby
service. I could have used anything from a 2Amp through 20Amp
power supply. I have seen 13.4 through 13.8 Volts specified,
but I choose to go with what the voltage on the battery.
20 Amp hour means the battery will deliver 1 amp for 20 hours
before the voltage drops to ~10.8V.
One big advantage of using a Gell Cell(or large NiCad or even
a deep cycle lead acid) battery was demonstrated this morning.
At 5:30AM our AC mains went down. My wife aswaken me when her
APAP (sleep apnea assisted resperator) alarm sounded as the
power failed. I got up and went to my radio desk, turned on the
back up desk illumination, some white LEDs to save power,
phoned the the utility, and carried one of the gell cells to the
bed room and connected her APAP to the battery. We picked her
machine because it would also operate on +12V. She went back to
sleep and I went back to the radio desk to try some DXing .
The only nice thing about the power failure was with the local
substation down, the bands where nice and quite.
I listened for 2 hours and headed in to work.
My wife reconnected the battery to the power supply when she
got up at 7:30 and found the power back on.
Having a decent standby battery pack sure beats lighting a candle
or lanturn.
I use 4 pin XLR "microphone style" connectors for all of my
DC power connections. They are farily cheap, $4~5 each, and
will carry 15 amps PER pin. Even with my hame gear fired up and
transmitting, I only draw 8 Amps. I even replaced the cigerette
lighter socket in my Civic with a 4 pin female XLR.
I am going to add a better power fail alarm, one that will wait 5
or 6 minutes then drive a sonalert and turn on a LED flash light.
At 5:30 it is DARK!
Terry