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Power supply advice

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ASAD

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Feb 21, 2011
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160
Hello. I'm looking for a power supply (220 v input) that will power up 2 or 3 radios at a time, including Motorola and Kenwood radios. But I will need to use the power supply to charge car batteries also. I'm looking into Astron RM-35M-BB-220V but it does trickle charge while I'm looking for a rapid charger.

Or is it safe to use a regular 12 v battery charger (available at Home Depot) to power up radios?

Any advice would be appreciated.
 

jaspence

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Mar 21, 2008
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12 V car chargers are not a good choice for radios. They lack proper filtering among other possible problems. A couple of questions. Why 220V input? What is the total current draw you need? Are these radios running on the same voltage? Last, but not least, a good power supply for radios is not going to be a good battery charger for car batteries. I use a 50 amp filtered radio supply for my radio operation, but my back up 12 V batteries are on trickle chargers in a stand by configuration.
 

bharvey2

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Mar 12, 2014
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1,843
A few options:

12V batteries are fine for powering your radios as long as you maintain their voltage. When I was a youngster and first got into CBs in the 70's, I'd use a 12V car battery and then charge it when I wasn't using the radio.

Linear power supplies like the one you mentioned above work quite well. They usually produce fairly clean power but can be heavy. Astron makes decent power supplies and you should be happy with the one you listed for powering a few radios. (Assuming your transmitting on one at a time and no extra RF amplifiers)

Switching power supplies are lighter for their given supply capability but a cheaply made one without good filtration can wreak havoc with your reception especially if you are powering HF radios.
 
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