Power Supply?

[alamo5000]

I am a relatively new Ham. Got my tech license a few months back and have been enjoying it tremendously.

I have a dual band mobile rig in my truck and its my only radio but I was thinking about getting another piece of equipment just in case I ever need or want to take the radio out of the truck.

A little background is that my install in my truck is very clean, but its also easily removable. In less than 5 to 10 minutes I could easily take the whole radio out of the truck if needed, put it into another vehicle or in the house if I want to.

If I ever need to remove the radio and use it indoors I am wondering what kind of power supply I will need to be able to effectively plug it into the wall or generator, etc.

(say during a hurricane or something where I will be at home but I don't want to sit in my truck in order to listen or communicate)

When I first got started someone let me borrow a little box thing that plugged in to the wall and I was able to test the radio out while sitting at my kitchen table. We ran the antenna out the window and viola.

However for some reason or another this little power supply regulator box supposedly did not support the high setting on my radio. Or at least so i was told.

From my house to be able to hit the most active repeaters I need to run high power in order to hit it cleanly. Medium could get me by in a pinch.

All I know is the old guy had been doing ham for a long time and told me not to turn on high power with that power supply he let me borrow because he said it wouldn't support it.

If I want to buy a wall plug in power supply so I can hook up my mobile rig indoors, what would I be looking for? What kind of stuff do I need or what specifically is it called and about how much do they cost? Again, I want it to be able to support the high setting on my radio.

Anyone have experience with this or have any advice?

FYI the power supply in my truck is set up using a cigarette lighter plug that is attached to my radio power cord. I have two of these outlets in my truck and one of them is dedicated to the radio, but all I have to do is just unplug the thing.

 

[JeremyB]

You could get an Astron RS35 to power about any dualband rig there is. They are priced at about $160 and are built like a tank.

How much power does your radio draw on high power? It may be more that what the wires going to your cig lighter plug in your truck can safely handle while transmitting

 

[alamo5000]

I run a kenwood D710A. The plug in my truck that I use isn't a standard plug. Its wired for much higher use from the factory. Also in the bed of my truck I have a factory installed electrical plug that I can run a lot of different stuff with a standard 3 prong electric plug. Air compressors, weed eaters, electric chainsaw...right out of the bed.

That auxillory plug is hooked into that system so it has a higher rating.

I read all the labels on the truck and radio both before I did it the way I did. Been running it for 3 months so far and not a single hitch.

50 watts max is what my radio puts out.

 

[davidgcet]

you need at least a 12v(13.8v actually) 20A power supply, that is gonna cost you a hair over 125.00 new or higher depending on what you get and where you get it.

 

[JeremyB]

I run a kenwood D710A. The plug in my truck that I use isn't a standard plug. Its wired for much higher use from the factory. Also in the bed of my truck I have a factory installed electrical plug that I can run a lot of different stuff with a standard 3 prong electric plug. Air compressors, weed eaters, electric chainsaw...right out of the bed.

That auxillory plug is hooked into that system so it has a higher rating.

I read all the labels on the truck and radio both before I did it the way I did. Been running it for 3 months so far and not a single hitch.

50 watts max is what my radio puts out.

Thats quite a truck. According to the manual the 710 draws about 13 amps, so a good 20 amp power supply should handle it well, most of the supplies are rated max but have a continuous rating as well. My Astron RS35 is 35 amps max, 25 continuous and powers my Yaesu 857 well.

The Astron does have a few issues, a slight hum all the time-transformer related and could be fixed pretty easily is it bothered me much.

 

[LtDoc]

The first thing you need to know is how much current does your hand held radio normally draw and at what voltage. (Since you're powering it from the cig-plug, I would assume it has that ability using that power connection.)
then you should know that almost all power supplies have two ratings. One for 'surges' (ICS) which is what's normally advertised, and a 'continuous' supply rate (CCS) that it will handle all the time. That 'CCS' rating is what you should pay attention to. That 'ICS' rating is typically 1.5 time the 'CCS' rating. Or, just get a supply that will do twice the amount of the fuse that carries your hand-held's input power. Some over-kill that way, but that's better than not having enough. (Looking in the operators manual for that power requirement is good too!)
- 'Doc

 

[rilke67]

QJE PS30SW1 Power Supply

this power supply costs 89.95. I have purchased this supply and it has run perfectly. The voltage is adjustable.

 

[DannB]

Pyramid PSV300

I have this one below

Amazon.com: Pyramid PSV300 Heavy-Duty 30 Ampere Switching Power Supply: Electronics

For just under $60.00 Bucks you cant beat it. I run a Yeasu 75 Watt 2meter out of the house with this, works great never skips a beat, even the built in meter on the radio tells me my voltage when transmitting and its right on.. very happy with it . also great price..

 

[Daniel_Boone]

Someone here is putting the horse before the cart.

I can't believe that no one was intelligent enough to ask what radio you are talking about.

All different radios has all different power requirements.

As an example - my Yaesu 8900 - requires a continuous 10 amps - 12 VDC
In order to fulfill the power requirements you would need to have a power supply capable of putting out 15 Amps - 12 VDC - due to needing a little extra power to fullfill the power factor and the fact that you would not want to run the radio for long periods of time on transmit with a power supply that was only rated at 10 amps at 10 amps.

I'm sure there is radios that uses a little more DC power or a little less.

Now if we were talking about using a ICOM 746 Pro - then we would need a 35 amp power supply - due to the fact that that particular radio needs 25 Amps - 12 volts DC in order to work properly and when you squeeze the power supply - one of two things happens.

Either we over load and over heat and eventually burn up the power supply, or we over load and heat up and burn up the transmitter in the radio. Either way - its not a good idea to use a cheap or inadequate power supply to furnish DC power for a radio.....

 

[davidgcet]

um, first of all we are intelligent enough to know the common power draw range for a 50W radio. even crappy ones with poor efficiency will only draw about 10-15A. most will draw about 8-9A at 13.8VDC for 50W, some will draw closer to 15.

secondly, power factor is for AC voltage. i want to see you figure it for DC. it has absolutely 0 to do with the DC load or the listed current rating of any DC power supply.

 

[DannB]

Someone here is putting the horse before the cart.

I can't believe that no one was intelligent enough to ask what radio you are talking about.

All different radios has all different power requirements.

As an example - my Yaesu 8900 - requires a continuous 10 amps - 12 VDC
In order to fulfill the power requirements you would need to have a power supply capable of putting out 15 Amps - 12 VDC - due to needing a little extra power to fullfill the power factor and the fact that you would not want to run the radio for long periods of time on transmit with a power supply that was only rated at 10 amps at 10 amps.

I'm sure there is radios that uses a little more DC power or a little less.

Now if we were talking about using a ICOM 746 Pro - then we would need a 35 amp power supply - due to the fact that that particular radio needs 25 Amps - 12 volts DC in order to work properly and when you squeeze the power supply - one of two things happens.

Either we over load and over heat and eventually burn up the power supply, or we over load and heat up and burn up the transmitter in the radio. Either way - its not a good idea to use a cheap or inadequate power supply to furnish DC power for a radio.....

well i assume your refering to my post, well none of what your saying is happening to my radio, it works fine on the 75watt setting which i use often to hit a repeater quite aways away from me to talk to a friend of mine . It is a mobile yaesu 2900 radio...I was shocked to, that it worked, i bought the power unit after reading feed back of actual users. and all had good results using it..Im not claiming this unit is TOP Of The Line by any means,i know its not .BUT for what i need it works great...Oh Also as per the owners manual the radio needs 13.5 volts and 15A for 75 watts....... thats it

 

[JeremyB]

Someone here is putting the horse before the cart.

I can't believe that no one was intelligent enough to ask what radio you are talking about.

All different radios has all different power requirements.

As an example - my Yaesu 8900 - requires a continuous 10 amps - 12 VDC
In order to fulfill the power requirements you would need to have a power supply capable of putting out 15 Amps - 12 VDC - due to needing a little extra power to fullfill the power factor and the fact that you would not want to run the radio for long periods of time on transmit with a power supply that was only rated at 10 amps at 10 amps.

I'm sure there is radios that uses a little more DC power or a little less.

Now if we were talking about using a ICOM 746 Pro - then we would need a 35 amp power supply - due to the fact that that particular radio needs 25 Amps - 12 volts DC in order to work properly and when you squeeze the power supply - one of two things happens.

Either we over load and over heat and eventually burn up the power supply, or we over load and heat up and burn up the transmitter in the radio. Either way - its not a good idea to use a cheap or inadequate power supply to furnish DC power for a radio.....

The original poster said in post #3 that he is running a Kenwood D710A, and the owners manual says it draws whatever amps(12?) in my reply(post #4 I think).

Sometimes I think it would have been smart of me to order the Astron RS50, it would have only been $50 more than the RS35, but then again I may never need the extra power