jamulc wrote:
Thanks for the input everyone. I'll spend some time looking over the
links and mulling over the advice provided.
In any case, I realize that these gel cells are on the heavier side (I
think I had seen a 31 Amp-Hour one registering at 24 lbs or so).
That's not too much of a concern. If I had a decent place to do some
serious listening from home, I would likely not be considering this
option. But, since moving to an extremely noisy apartment building in
an urban area, I have really not been able to put the R8B to the type
of listening I used to enjoy doing (e.g. chasing the Andean stations in
the tropical bands, among other things). So, having chosen an
appropriate outside listening location and having taken care of antenna
considerations, I'm just looking for a proper means of powering. A
portable receiver just isn't quite gonna give me quite the satisfaction
that I'd get using the R8B. The issue of wear and tear on the radio
is, of course, a concern. I picked up a somewhat large, padded Pelican
case for this very reason. In any case, if I'm every gonna get any
real usage out of this radio, I've gotta get it out of my present
location.


If you're driving to the location you'll be listening to, you could
easily power the radio for several hours at a clip from the car battery.

I have a gizmo intended for jump starting cars that has a 17ah battery
in it that I use for powering my telescopes. These come with a wall
wart charger, and they're pretty reasonably priced.

I also feel looking into a low noise antenna design at home makes sense.

If you haven't tried an impedance matching transformer with a random
wire, it's worth it.