Shack Power Supply Question

Just curious if any of you with several scanners are using a combined power supply or conditioner? Maybe explain why a single supply is better vs' the wall warts and a power strip? I was thinking of getting all my scanners powered by one power supply. I can build a fuse block and wire them individually. Help and opinions is what I'm looking for here.

A power strip some times gives you interference using more than just 1 object. I did this at work one time with my scanner, I had 4 things plugged in to the power source I was using & got all kinds of interference in my scanner, even when I used an electrical power tool, it took me a few minutes to figure it out, I had to plug my scanner in a outlet by it's self. Are you power striping at home or work ? You may want to try it out first & see what happens.

I use an Astron 30 Amp power supply for all my radios.

Astron power supply works well.

I use Astron power supplies too. To reduce noise problems, stay away from switching power supplies. They tend to have more noise and wear out over time. A heavy power supply with a large transformer is the way to go.

For radios, always get a higher amperage than the radio draws at full transmit power, and then some. I have seen many 20 amp power supplies fail quickly once 17 amps is drawn over time. Where I work, we stick with 30 Amp Astron's for 17 draw radios, and that seems to be enough.

alt power

I try to stay away from getting my power from the power companies. I use a couple of good RV batteries installed outside the radio room in an old small freezer with a solar panal attached to them then run the power lines into the radio room to a + & _ bus bars then to all the radios. This works really well reduces hmmm from transformers, power lines, back-up power works for days and after the initial cost not a penny more. Don't seam to have any problems with charging and am running 10 radios.

In my shacks I have used a decent large 12VDC supply for the radios and accessories, only using wall-warts for those few items that use something other than 12v.

If you use a decent switching supply it will reduce the heat generated than a straight transformer-rectifier supply but you may find increase RF noise. I have a Samlex 30A switching supply and never had any RF noise from it.

My current (well, currently in storage awaiting the move to the new house...) shack (http://forums.radioreference.com/pictures-your-shack-mobile-setup/294794-n9jig-racks-shack.html) has 3 cabinets that hold up to 10 radios each. Each of the 3 cabinets has it's own Astron 25A supply, more than enough to cover the needs fo the radios and accessories. Each cabinet also has an AC power strip so I can handle the DC supply and a couple wall-warts as needed.

The advantage of having a single supply for all the radios instead of a bunch of wall-warts is that you turn on and off the whole thing with one switch. Wall-warts draw power even when the radio it is connected to is turned off. Using a single supply allows you to just power down the whole stack when you leave.

Astron RS-35A with West Mountain Radio PG-40S Super Powergate with 160Ah AGM battery attached and then 4008 RIGrunner then using 12v cigarette lighter power blocks to connect to radios.

And outback just incase 20KW Generac standby generator.

David Kb7uns