Personally I would steer away from any switching power supply for a radio. A linear power supply or vehicle battery is really the best way to go.
Solar inverters or any inverter for that fact just introduce noise. Something you really don't want for dxing. Now. If it's VHF, UHF you operate then perhaps. I do like Meanwall power supplies. They make very nice ones. From my industrial world experience, the medical grade ones are much quieter than their everyday off the shelf variety. But they are switchers.
Icom dropped the ball big on at least the IC-R8600 by selling the AD-55NS power brick and the matching speaker with the same ps in it.
Noisy as hell. It obliterates any chance of receiving NAVTEX and is simply full of hash. For weak signals, a disaster. Not so much when you get up there in the ps band or when using FM.
Now. I got nothing against charging my LiFePO battery bank with the Noco charger after a period of radio usage. Or charging while sing them with a linear charger.
The subject of 13.8 VDC vs 12 VDC comes up. Radios that use specified 13.2 or so voltages will run just fine in 12 volts. Look at the specs sheet. Especially if you transmit.
Usually that 13.2 volts will be passed through an internal set of regulators and dissipated as heat if using linear regulators inside the radio.
So 12 volts may be the hot ticket. A 13.2-13.8 volt fully charged battery will give you leeway of radio use until they discharge to around 12 V.
Yeah.....
And. During the hurricanes in Florida when the juice was off for a week. I used my laptop with an 18 VDC power brick on 12 volt batteries. It worked just fine. That's when I made my first buss bar and started cutting wall wart cables to run my fiber modem and router and stuff.
Sorry for the rant. If you have a coin to toss and you make a choice of switcher vs linear supply for your rigs. Choose linear.
On a side note. If you look at the schematic of most any smps. The output filtering consists of a simple small choke (inductor) a resistor, and a bulk capacitor. Detail is given more on filtering back emr to the mains than rf, switching hash on the output. Across the board.
Solar inverters or any inverter for that fact just introduce noise. Something you really don't want for dxing. Now. If it's VHF, UHF you operate then perhaps. I do like Meanwall power supplies. They make very nice ones. From my industrial world experience, the medical grade ones are much quieter than their everyday off the shelf variety. But they are switchers.
Icom dropped the ball big on at least the IC-R8600 by selling the AD-55NS power brick and the matching speaker with the same ps in it.
Noisy as hell. It obliterates any chance of receiving NAVTEX and is simply full of hash. For weak signals, a disaster. Not so much when you get up there in the ps band or when using FM.
Now. I got nothing against charging my LiFePO battery bank with the Noco charger after a period of radio usage. Or charging while sing them with a linear charger.
The subject of 13.8 VDC vs 12 VDC comes up. Radios that use specified 13.2 or so voltages will run just fine in 12 volts. Look at the specs sheet. Especially if you transmit.
Usually that 13.2 volts will be passed through an internal set of regulators and dissipated as heat if using linear regulators inside the radio.
So 12 volts may be the hot ticket. A 13.2-13.8 volt fully charged battery will give you leeway of radio use until they discharge to around 12 V.
Yeah.....
And. During the hurricanes in Florida when the juice was off for a week. I used my laptop with an 18 VDC power brick on 12 volt batteries. It worked just fine. That's when I made my first buss bar and started cutting wall wart cables to run my fiber modem and router and stuff.
Sorry for the rant. If you have a coin to toss and you make a choice of switcher vs linear supply for your rigs. Choose linear.
On a side note. If you look at the schematic of most any smps. The output filtering consists of a simple small choke (inductor) a resistor, and a bulk capacitor. Detail is given more on filtering back emr to the mains than rf, switching hash on the output. Across the board.
