Bearcat 20/20 scanner power question

[Shortwave2200]

Is it possible to run this scanner off of 10 AA batteries in a battery holder made to fit inside the radio?

10x1.5= 15 volts and the power plug for the car adaptor is rated at 13.8 volts.

 

[SpectreOZ]

Anything is possible although I imagine you'd rather use rechargeable batteries instead of primaries (cheaper in the long haul), your options though would limit the length of "runtime" before the need arose for a fresh set of cells.

According to Ohm's Law 9 watts at 13.8 volts means your scanner will be chugging down about 0.65 Amps, thus a generic (multi-AA NiMh) 2500 mAh cell pack should last around 3 ~ 3.5 hours give or take depending on standby consumption.

 

[bwhite]

I'm not sure what unique use you have in mind but digging out the battery pack every 3 hours probably isn't what you had in mind. You may want to consider an external fairly small 12v battery from a motorcycle, toy, etc and jacking that in to your 12v (13.8v) jack. This way you can easily swap batteries if you had 2 or in fact leave the battery jacked into the radio and put a 12 v wall wart on the battery to keep it charging. You surely won't get any 60 cycle hum this way.