K3LFO/W3DIO Rover Site

We already have battery backup in place for our two radio power systems that are located in the front closet; however, we do not have any kind of power systems backup for the amplifiers and transverters located in the back closet.

So we decided this was a problem we wanted to solve for a few reasons. Some of the beams are high enough off the roof when in motion to still use somewhat, we will still need continue on if the generator fails on us, and there may be times we want to operate from a campsite at night where generators are not allowed to be run during certain hours.

We decided to do this in a few phases. The first phase will be to get the battery power to everything. First step is going to be to decouple the inverter from the same batteries used as backup power for the RIGS. We decided that we have two perfectly good 105AH 12v batteries in the RV for the house system. This gets charged underway and when the generator is running. So we will run a #8 wire from the inverter down through the floor underneath the back seat at the table and then out to the battery. It’s only a few feet. Then we will run a single #4 wire underneath the chasis to the same hole where all the coax enters the vehicle to a distribution block. We will then attach a shorter #4 wire to the chasis to provide ground and run it into a similar distribution block.

Second phase is going to be using one of Dave’s mistakes. Dave purchased a Jacob’s Accuvolt off of ebay a few years back. Turns out that it was a 16-18 volt model not the 13.8 volt model. Normally this would be a problem without a regulator. It turns out that Astron RS-70m has a nice regulator in it. So we will install a relay and backfeed that regulator with 18v output from the Accuvolt. Thus supplying regulated 14.2v to all the transverters and amplifiers for battery voltage down to 9 volts. The relay will be a 120v coil and will connect the accuvolt output to the regulator circuit when AC power is lost.

So you say, WAIT!?!??! What about your 26 volt systems. Easily solved. The power inverter is a 600 watt pure sine wave inverter. In times of power outage where we want to use the 903 amplifier, 2304 or higher systems that require 26 volts we will hook the Astron LS-35M to the inverter to power it. The max current will be about 17 amps and that is from the 903 amplifier. Everything else is considerably less and thus the inverter will be able to easily handle it. You can see an updated power system diagram here.