[NCARC] Converting 24v to 12v

[Bob Proulx]

> Why not just find a 12 volt regulator and run it from the 24 volt 
> battery? Use that to run the rig. You will lose some power in the drop 
> across that regulator, but so be it. You might be able to find a 
> switching type that will be relatively efficient.

I imagine that regulator would get pretty hot with 12v dumped across
it at 20 amps, 240 watts, during transmit.  Perhaps running it inside
a wet dummy load oil can.  Blech.  If you were going to do that I
would gang up a large array of zener diodes and have them eat the drop
with a lot of heat sink.

And remember that every watt used by the radio must also be used by
whatever you have dropping the voltage and so your total power used is
doubled.  Make sure you have enough to power the whole thing as it
will need to produce 500 watts or so during transmit.

Now if you could run two radios exactly in sync across the 24v to
split the voltage evenly between them you would be able to double your
power out without any wasted input power.  You still use 500 watts in
but none of it is wasted.  Of course I have no way of suggesting how
you would do that.  :-)

Bob