On batteries....
The best bet I have found is Maha Powerex 2700 batteries, two sets so you can rotate, leaving the radio on external power whenever possible. Those batteries give about a half day of steady use for me, with backlight only on during active RX>
Ditto on the Maha Powerex 2700. I'm also a new fan of the Sanyo Eneloop 2000.
As part of some recent testing, I did this:
* Brand-new Powerex 2700 batteries, fresh from the Maha C9000
* Monitoring the Colorado DTRS, one site, 183 talkgroups
* Only about 25 talkgroups are reliably active
* Recording 13 of the active talkgroups
* Backlight on all the time ("Low")
* CC logging turned on
* Volume level: 14
The PSR-800 ran for 13.5 hours. It recorded 3.2 hours of audio in 1,106 recordings. This 3.2 hours does not represent the total time that the scanner was "talking", since not all of the talkgroups were recorded.
A subsequent test:
* Brand-new Eneloop 2000 batteries, no charge (straight from the package)
* Monitoring the Colorado DTRS, one site, 183 talkgroups
* Recording all activity
* Backlight on all the time ("Low")
* CC logging turned on
* Volume level: 20
The PSR-800 ran for 7.5 hours. It recorded 2.55 hours of audio in 874 recordings.
(In both of the above tests, some talkgroup objects had the tri-color LED programmed. The effects, though, are negligible, since the LED is also subject to the "Low" setting for the backlight and takes an insignificant amount of power.)