Jim,
I have been running an Omni VI and a Hercules II for well over 5 years on 4
deep cycle batteries. They are enclosed in a "dog house" that is sitting
directly outside of the shack here.
I have an access panel mounted on this wall and all of the antennas, rotors
and dc from the batteries enter thru this panel. The batteries remain on
charge at all times. I use an automatic battery charger that is designed
specifically for deep cycle batteries.
It is NEVER unhooked or turned off. The dc supply cables are both made of
welding cable and BOTH fused at 100 amps. Then are fed into the shack thru
some very big panel mounted feed thru caps.....
All of the batteries, of which I started with only 2 and the battery charger
were bought at Wal-Mart.....the charger was $49.00 and I believe the
batteries were $59.00 each......
Another thing.....I run all of the radio equipment in my shack with these
batteries.....HF, VHF and UHF.....I do leave a 2 meter transceiver on at all
times....this maintains a current draw on the batteries.... I was told by a
commercial battery supplies.....BIG BATTERIES, like for tow motors and fork
lifts....that the batteries would last longer if I maintained a current draw
on them and never removed the batteries from the charger. He must have been
right, I can't argue with 5 years of service.
Do they last under constant use.....I do a little contesting, and this
arrangement has worked several contests for the maximum allowed operating
time.....Omni VI and Herc.....
Mike - KC8WR
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