[Milsurplus] Re: ARC-5 Mobile

[David Stinson]

To each his own, of course.
I used batteries to take the surge from my SCR-287 back in 1996,
but I won't be doing that again.

I don't like having batteries sitting around in my shack,
float charging.  Big batteries are nasty creatures.  
They, with their charger, take up lots of room.
They leak (even the "leakproof" ones) and vent evil gases.
They corrode, unless you coat the poles with foul brown goop,
more of which gets on you than on your batteries.
They eat holes in your nice new work clothes
(yes; even the "leakproof" kind).  If you drop a 
tool on them, you get to enjoy flash burns from 
vaporized steel and lead, which tastes so yummy as 
you inhale it, just before you get showered with scalding acid.
Sometimes they blow up for no visible reason at all-
I think they do it out of boredom or spite.
Ever had to douche-down the insides of a generator building
(including the generator and transfer panels, etc.) with
alkaline water, trying to save them from their fresh
coating of battery acid?  I have... it sucks.
And they wear out every couple-or-four years,
even just float charging, so I  have to buy another expensive set 
and then have the butt-ache of disposing of the old corpses.

My starter caps keep on working- even after ten years of storage.
Ain't many batteries can say that.  Most of the Chinese car 
batteries you get these days are lucky to store for ten months.
I don't abuse them, so they haven't leaked.  
They haven't blown up.  And if they did, the worst I might get
is showered with smelly confetti.
They don't vent gases that can cause the roof of my shack 
to suddenly (and momentarily) defy gravity.
They discharge when I turn off the juice, so when I drop a wrench,
I don't have to breathe super-heated lead vapor 
or grow a new layer of skin.  
They don't need brown goop.
They don't eat my clothes. 
And they fit in less space than one small battery charger. 
Everyone got their "thing," but for me- gimme the caps.

73 D.S.