Hi Andy,

You will find that a separate, fused wire run to the vehicle battery is
recommended by most sources (mfg., mags., etc.,). And indeed, it IS a
good idea. Having said that, I've been running a 50 W rig (IC-2720H)
from the rear seat accessory jack in my 2000 Saturn Wagon for the past
year. Ran a single band 2M rig before that. Never had a problem with
the rig or interferring with the Saturn's "brain". I would caution,
however, against using under gauge wire. I'm using the rigs supplied
power cord (I believe it's #12 stranded) for the run from the jack to
the wheel well in the trunk where the rig is mounted. The control head
is mounted on the dashboard. The rig feeds a MFJ dual-band on-glass
antenna on the drivers side rear window, so the RF leads are away from
the power leads and away from the front of the vehicle.

The draw for the rig is about 8 amps on hi power. That's with an
antenna that's close to a 1:1 match. If it gets too far out of tune and
your SWR's go up, the current drain will go up as well. So, set up the
system properly, use wire at least as heavy as the lead to the accessory
jack, and give it a try. Worst case...just run low power.

HTH,
Paul (N0KIA)

VHFRadioBuff wrote:
Hello all. My car has a seperate "accessory" port from the standard cigarette
lighter. My understanding is that this port is actually rated for more amps
than the cigarette lighter and might actually be ok to power my 50 watt 2m
mobile if I were to add a cigarette lighter plug to the end of it.

Can anyone comment on this? Any experience using these accessory ports to power
50 watt radios? The car in question is a 2000 Mercury Sable.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
73! de Andy KC2SSB - WPYI880 (GMRS)
Beachwood, NJ USA! Grid FM29vw
http://vhfradiobuff.tripod.com