[Amps] Emergency communication

[Jim Brown]

YES!  Wayne Burdick, principal and chief engineer at Elecraft, comes out 
of the world of backpacking rigs, and his receivers are optimized to 
minimize current draw. The K3/K3S, designed for desktop use, draw the 
most, about 1A. The KX3, designed primarily for backpacking, draws about 
150 mA. Max out is about 10W, and there's an outboard 100W brick amp 
that very neatly integrates with the KX3 (there's an optional tuner, 
controlled by buttons on the KX3.  I loaned my KX3 and KXPA100, along 
with a 20Ah LiFePO4 battery to a team that backpacked in about 2 miles 
with a 1,000 ft climb to activate a rare 6M grid in Nor Cal. W6GJB also 
loaned his 20Ah battery.

They adopted W7GJ's excellent strategy to save battery by NOT calling 
CQ, but rather posting to VHF chat rooms for those wanting a QSO to call 
him, and he responds to those he copies. At the end of the day, they 
were still on the first battery.

73, Jim K9YC

On Thu,4/27/2017 1:15 PM, Fuqua, Bill L wrote:
>   What is sad is that most ham transceivers draw way too much current in receive.  Often as much as an Amp. A battery would last much longer if the receive current drain on the battery was a tenth of that.