So I decided to check the actual current draw to be sure I had a decent choice. ?I prepared a 50 ohm resistive load for the antenna, plugged in my ear buds and set the supply voltage to 12.0 volts with my bench supply. ?I put my Harbor Freight ?vom in as an ammeter and observed the current to be .14 amps on receive and .54 amps during transmit.?
Noticing that my fat fingers had put in .3 amps when the math really was .39 amps (I had intended to round it to 400 ma and didn't notice the typo), and that I thought that would be safe, I needed to correct that. ?My actual draw was bigger and probably since different parts of the circuit are involved and there must be efficiency stuff to consider, I should have expected something higher. ?.54 amps is higher but not as high as was obtained with the 13,85 volts and below the specified limit of 750 ma on the cord.
I think the cheap cable sold on eBay is not a bad choice. ?I am waiting for it's delivery so I can see the actual voltage but it lets me use a bunch of battery backups that I have for phones, etc ?and they can be charged from the usb outlet on my car, my generator,my charging station, etc. It may be a better idea to use higher voltage for the power but it is not a bad choice for emergency use.??My thermoelectric stove lamp can run the transceiver so I can run my system if I just have firewood. ?Not bad but probably a bit extreme for an idea.
WB6TOU
