Preparedness & Ham Radio

ToddDubya

ToddDubya

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Most of us know that you can't (shouldn't) just buy a ham radio and put it in a box and expect to be able to use it in an emergency. Evan K2EJT does a little after action (mid action) debrief of Hurricane Helene. A lot of what he talks about is fairly obvious if you're already a ham, but if you're thinking about sticking a 'feng in a box for the apocalypse, this might be worth watching. It's been said a million times that you have to actually use the radio and practice with it, and you need a license to do that.

One takeaway for me was being able to charge an HT from something other than wall power. I'll have to look at mine and see what the cradles use for input voltage. If they take 12v in, I might put them all on Power Poles and run the cradles off a 12v supply. Then should I ever have to charge without AC, I can charge it off a battery or in the car.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tOFZ7uoewg
 
One of the benefits of having radios mounted in my truck and used on a daily basis is that I don't have to try to figure things out on the fly. BTW, I've been monitoring some of the HF nets into and out of the storm-damaged areas.
 
Good post- One thing I ran in to years ago, at the beginning of the Wouxon cheap Chinese radio craze, was that the wall-brick was in fact 12v, but when plugging in to the 13v-15v of a car it melted the regulator and charger base.

UJay
 
UJay said:
Good post- One thing I ran in to years ago, at the beginning of the Wouxon cheap Chinese radio craze, was that the wall-brick was in fact 12v, but when plugging in to the 13v-15v of a car it melted the regulator and charger base.

UJay
Click to expand...
Why am I not surprised?

A friend of mine wired all of his chargers to run off his shack supply so he only has one switch mode supply instead of many. He hasn't had this problem but I don't think he has any of the cheap HTs. I also like the tip about using batteries that take USB-C. I didn't even know those exist. Not finding them for my HTs though.
 
We maintain a small 'solar generator' that's intended to charge radios, phones, etc. It has multiple output options including 5V, 12V and an inverter for AC.

Used it for an active day at the Boston Marathon, without a solar panel, and didn't even put a dent in the capacity.

Also used it to power four transceivers, with a solar panel attached, for a field day station operating in the low power class. Never ran out of juice. Worked great.
 
Any voltage can be derived from a car battery, it's just a matter of using the right circuit and components.
 
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