[NLRS] Advice on auxiliary battery for June contest rover

[kf0q at hbci.com]

Dave,

You don't mention the kind of power you are running perhaps I missed  
that on an earlier thread
Either way having another battery or even two other batteries ready to  
go is a great idea.  I have used the backup battery more than once and  
have had to use it to get my vehicle started just to get home in the  
january contest.  Weird things can happen out on the road in the heat  
of the battle; I like to prepare for the worst.
Early on in my rover days I installed a battery isolator.  I ran a  
130AH deep cycle aux battery that was charged through a 150A isolator.  
  The isolators are easy to hook up and I would recommend having one  
if you have the time to install it.

Many roves went well without a hitch and I had plenty of power for  
400W on 144 with the battery setup.  I never opted to parallel my  
starting battery from the car with another battery.  I have divided  
the load some times such as powering up an IF rig or inverter with the  
car starting battery but not without some problems along the way such  
as the inverter draining my car starting battery to dangerously low  
levels.  Like I said weird stuff can happen in a contest.
Make sure you have heavy enough cable in all of your runs to reduce  
vdrop.  Most of my intermediate runs were 8AWG and the longer stuff to  
and from the isolator mounted under the hood was 4AWG.

All of my power leads were separately fused and I carry plenty of  
spares as well.  For several years I never had to use hardly any fuses  
then all of a sudden in one contest I went through several fuses in  
one event.  I even had the internal fuse blow inside the IC706mkII once.

Good luck on the rover setup this year; I really miss it some times  
myself.  It is always interesting reflecting back on the event post  
contest and thinking about how fun it was and what to do next time out  
to improve.

73,
Matt
KF0Q
Rover been there before


----- Message from thepalmhq at gmail.com ---------
     Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2010 09:16:48 -0500
     From: David Palm <thepalmhq at gmail.com>
Subject: [NLRS] Advice on auxiliary battery for June contest rover
       To: NLRS List <nlrs at mailman.qth.net>, Badger Contesters List
<badgercontesters at mailman.qth.net>

>
>
> Still working as much as possible to pull all of the equipment
together for
> our rove in the June contest.  Got the DEM 1296 transverter doing
its thing
> and tuned up a WA5VJB "cheap yagi" for that band, so we'll at least
have a
> small footprint there.  902 is a long shot at this point, but still
> possible.
>
> Next on the agenda is DC power.  I'll be pulling cables from a
direct
> connection to the battery under the hood into the vehicle (both
legs fused,
> of course).  We'll be operating with the vehicle running most of
the time, I
> believe.  But I'd like to have an additional battery, just to help
hold up
> the voltage.
>
> I have a large lead-acid battery that was part of an array to start
a big
> generator at a hospital.  I was going to put that on the cargo
hitch carrier
> on which our antennas are mounted and run cables (both legs fused,
of
> course) into the vehicle.
>
> Now, how to best handle having two batteries.  K0BG states in his
article on
> the subject that if I'm not planning on switching back and forth
between the
> batteries no isolator is needed, that the batteries can just be
connected in
> parallel:
>
> http://www.k0bg.com/alternator.html
>
> That sounds reasonable and it's simple.  I would like to wire
things this
> way, just to keep it simple enough to get done before the contest.
But I
> just wanting to double-check with some of you rovers out there to
make sure
> that this is an okay idea.
>
> Thanks and 73,
>
> David  W9HQ
> ______________________________________________________________
> NLRS mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/nlrs
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:NLRS at mailman.qth.net
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>

----- End message from thepalmhq at gmail.com -----