[NLRS] Advice on auxiliary battery for June contest rover

[David Palm]

Thanks for all the excellent feedback I got on this question, both on and
off list.  If I didn't get back to you personally, please know I appreciate
your advice.  I'm not sure how much I'm going to be able to get in place for
the June contest, but I'm definitely going to implement many of these
suggestions for the August "Rover Mania"

Thanks and 73,

David  W9HQ




On 6/3/10, Philip Hejtmanek <p_hejtmanek at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> David,
>
> When I was roving actively, I ended up just carrying a separate deep
> discharge battery in one of those insulated plastic boxes, completely
> isolated from the car's electrical system.  Why?  I found that no matter
> what I did, I always ended up having whine or other noise in my receiver,
> from the car system, unless I ran that way.  I also carried a fast charger,
> so I could top it up during downtime.  I never ran the battery out, and I
> had 100-150 watts on 6-432 and tens of watts on bands above.  It was also
> easier to manage power wiring.
>
> FYI, I carried an interface cigarette lighter plug, just in case the
> battery failed somehow, but essentially never used it.
>
> Speaking of noise, i had a pesky problem with an odd hash noise for a long
> time, until I discovered that my Garmin GPS was putting garbage back into
> the power system.  A big ferrite core fixed that, but be prepared for the
> unexpected.
>
> 73,
>
> Phil   kf9us
>
>
>
> On Jun 3, 2010, at 9:16 AM, David Palm wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > 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
>
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