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Over the years I have powered my rigs using various sources of power. Back in the old tube days, it may have been an old HP23 Heathkit high voltage supply, or even a high voltage supply built into the radio itself. When I converted to solid state, my source of power came from one of various available regulated 13.8 volt supplies, and at different times I owned models from different makers.
I’ve tended to stick with the heavy regulated supplies and their heavy transformers, rather than make use of switching supplies. I’m an aficionado of old analog radios, and I’ve found they get along better with the big brute supplies. Analog radios are more sensitive to issues in the domain of power supply noise, RF hash, poor filtering, feedback, FM-ing, and so forth. I’ve had Swan, MFJ, Astron, and Ten Tec power supplies. I have accumulated a store of observations about the various supplies I’ve used, and how much I liked them (or not).
If you have a power supply long enough, you’ll have to repair it. For one thing, the electrolytics are perishable devices, and after some period of time need to be replaced. I’ve changed the caps in all of the supplies I’ve owned. Some are easier to work with than others, but there are plusses and minuses with each.
For instance, the old Astron 20 amp supplies I’ve had were relatively easy to do cap replacements on, since they used large 47,000 uF capacitors affixed with clamps and the +/- terminal screws. The old MFJ 35 amp supply that I owned was a bit of a longer process, as it had ten ganged 4,700 uF capacitors on a circuit board, soldered into place. In some ways, this arrangement of many smaller caps is good, as the smaller ones are easier to find and are cheaper. But, one needs to spend the time to desolder and resolder ten caps.
My old Ten Tec 260 has a big capacitor, similar to the one in the old Astron 20 amp regulated supply, except it is only a 26,000 uF unit. It is super easy to replace, even easier than my old Astron.
The next big replacement item in these old supplies are the pass transistors. They come in different power capacities, with the lower powered supplies having the less capable transistors. I’ve smoked a few of these pass transistors over the years, running a high duty cycle that proved to be too much. In each case, I replaced them with beefier units. In one particularly bad re-fail, I neglected to apply new thermal paste to the new transistors (ouch).
But, all in all, i think the best supply for the radio – taking into consideration all of the repair issues, the noise issues, and so forth, is the battery. They have become so powerful, cheap, and ubiquitous, they are rapidly making the choice easy for me. The newest of these batteries have recharge cycle ratings of 5,000 charges. It will obviously take a while to reach the limit of the advertised cycle life, given the power levels I run, and the time I spend on the rigs. Time will tell.
I store these batteries on a cast iron rack, to minimize safety issues like fire and so forth (probably the risk cannot be eliminated). There is always some small risk to battery usage. I don’t use lead-acid batteries at all – since it’s not necessary any more with the new high capacity batteries that are available.
WB8LZR 