For quite a while, now, I had been thinking about getting a LiFePO battery for the van. There’s a few different reasons that I’ve wanted to, but the main reason is radio noise. The battery will have almost no interference, compared to the gas powered generator that I had been using. The one thing that really pushed my decision, recently, was when Jason and I went up to the fly-in car show at the airport on May 1, 2021. Jason set up his hambulance and I set up my big ear antenna and generator.
Because of the way the show was set up, I was not able to get the separation between the antenna and generator that I would normally get at a portable operation or Field Day. The generator was set up just in front of the vehicle, toward the driver’s side, and the antenna was set up just behind the passenger’s door. Normally, I set them up as far away from each other as possible (at least 100′ away from each other) to avoid as much noise from the generator getting into the antenna. Normally it works pretty good, but I still get noise (whether grounded or not).
What happened at the airport event was that I was able to operate on 40 meters, but 20 meters was mostly unusable. Since the timing of the event was during the day, it would have been great to be able to get on 20 meters. There were multiple QSO parties happening (7th Area, DE, IN, and New England), so I’m sure there was plenty of signals out there. I just couldn’t hear them on 20 meters (except for a few high powered stations).
On May 24th, I decided, with Field Day coming up, I wanted to get a different power setup, so I finally pulled out the CC and bought a few items from Dakota Lithium. As I write this on May 29th, I have not received everything that I ordered, but I just wanted to go through some of the calculations that I did, before deciding on what I wanted, and making the purchases.
First of all, I will point out that I have never been one for “running a frequency”. I am more of a “search and pounce” operator when it comes to any sort of contest or QSO party. The reason that I am throwing this out there is that depending on how much you transmit, you will use more or less power. I have done all sorts of calculations, and will include those in the next post. Secondly, I will add that they are just my calculations, and I have not yet put any of it to the test, in the real world. I will do an update after I’m able to spend some time testing things out.
I will definitely be getting more things to complete the project, but here is what I purchased, so far, from Dakota Lithium. I ordered a 12V 54Ah Deep Cycle LiFePO4 Battery, a Folding Fast-Charge 12V Solar Panel, and a USB Phone Charger, Voltmeter, & Terminal Adapter Wiring Kit.
In the next post, I will try to detail my calculations.