Greetings:
I have used the Scout extensively on battery power, both small Gel Cell
batteries, regular car batteries and real very large diesel starting
batteries.
The Scout is not a radio in its virgin format that I would recommend for
portable use on a small battery or a regular vehicle battery. The radio
goes quickly into the "you have a chirp on your CW" mode very quickly, even
minor I^2R related drops in the vehicle power wiring will put the radio into
this mode. The radio is a great radio it is not a great portable radio in
my experience. The only battery I have found that will power this radio is
a very large battery I have that was used to start a large diesel engine, at
100+ lbs this is a real battery. I t will power the Scout over a complete
field day, the next several months on occasional contacts etc.
There is another solution I have been experimenting with. I have a DDS,
Direct Digital Synthesizer, here that I have been hooking into the band
module plug in socket, taking the transmit offset shift out and using it to
switch the DDS unit between TX and RX frequencies, which is the CW offset.
With the DDS in place all the problems with low voltage are gone and the
radio works great right down to 11V DC on my Gel Cell battery.
The solution is a tiny DDS unit to replace the Scout VFO. Then you would
have a great portable radio that is second to none.
If I ever have the time I will make up a tiny module to do this, but for now
other things have higher priority. In the interim there is a great after
market business opportunity to build a kit to do this. The VFO in the Scout
is great 1970 and 1980 technology but it sure doesn't meet my expectation of
a good idea for a product being sold today.
Larry
VA3LK
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