[TenTec] Station power supply??

[Jim Brown]

On 9/3/2012 10:09 AM, denton wrote:
> Any suggestions or observations? 

You have a quiet QTH and you want to ADD switching power supplies? Is 
you crazy? :)

A poor man's UPS that I have used for at least eight years consists of a 
little 10A regulated power supply that float charges the biggest deep 
cycle battery that Costco sells. That setup will run all of your radios 
as long as you only transmit with one at a time. I do a lot of SO2R 
contesting, so I have two batteries and two of those power supplies.

The key to making the batteries last is good voltage regulation that you 
set below the point where the battery is overcharged.  My batteries last 
at least three years.  My shack computers are laptops with good batteries.

The result is that I've got several hours of UPS transmitting at 100W.. 
I ran Field Day QRP at home with this setup for about 18 hours last year 
and had plenty of battery left at the end.

There is a battery-charging option for the Astron supplies.One of my 
neighbors bought one and uses it with a rig like mine. Strongly 
recommended. Without it, a charged battery connected to the Astron will 
blow the output regulator in the event of a power failure.

73, Jim K9YC