Pretty good guess, David. These days newer HT come with Nickel-Metal-Hydride which do not need the kind of maintenance that NiCD do. Typically they hold charge much longer and do not develop a "memory" condition.

At my former employment (now retired) we maintained over 200 HT batteries for immediate emergency response. It was sufficient to put the chargers on a timer to charge them for a couple hours/day (typ. at night). Batteries that had not been regularly charged held good for up to 30-days after a full charge cycle.

Important to use chargers designed for the chemistry of the battery. Back in the day of NiCD we charged once/week and reconditioned monthly to extend life on batteries that had to perform but sat on the shelf for long periods of non-use. The absolutely worse thing one could do was set a HT into a charger full-time.

In a response van we had a large deep-cycle 4D lead-acid battery and it was charged with the proper float charger. But not being a sealed battery, one had to check the electrolyte level periodically.

I the comm center an eight-battery bank wired for 48vdc was run on float and they typ. were good for 4-years of standby use (fed industrial size UPS). The 12vdc equipment ran on another large 12v battery bank with float. That equipment was powered 24/7 with similar life-cycle of several years. Note that commercial deep-cycle batteries were used and cost 3x what the typ. car battery costs.

Now I have a 6500w standby generator so battery back-up is less necessary for the home station (I do have a bank of 8AH gell-cell batteries). No HT, at present.

73, Ed - KL7UW

At 01:25 AM 12/31/2010, G0MRF@aol.com wrote:

Hi Clint.

Sounds like a unique solution. Probably OK for NiCd or Lead acid.

However, if it's any sort of Lithium technology in those batteries, then deep cycling and a top up charge is definately the wrong way.

For maximum shelf life Lithium batteries need to be kept at 40 - 60% charge, then topped up when needed. Also, for the maximum number of cycles, the battery needs a small depth of discharge not deep cycling.

Your friend is probably using NiCd bats, but I thought I would mention it just in case anyone thought this would be a good idea for Lithium batteries.

Thanks es HNY

David

In a message dated 30/12/2010 19:20:52 GMT Standard Time, clintbradford@mac.com writes:

He also performs a "cycling" of his battery pack every 60 days (running the radio until it won't power on, then charging).

After a year-and-a-half of this, his voltage indication is still quite high. When he performs his "cycling," the pack seems to not have lost a bit of capacity.

---

Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb

73, Ed - KL7UW, WD2XSH/45 ====================================== BP40IQ 500 KHz - 10-GHz www.kl7uw.com EME: 144-1.4kw*, 432-100w*, 1296-testing*, 3400-winter? DUBUS Magazine USA Rep dubususa@hotmail.com ====================================== *temp not in service