Power for Ham Radio equipment

[Berdan]

Yesterday I installed a RigRunner 4010S DC power strip into the cubby hole of my entertainment console. I wired to the spare 30 AMP DC output of the power center. I can now plug in my Ham Radio equipment and operate in the dining slideout. The power converter is a little noisy RF wise but I can shut off the converter and operate directly off of battery power.

[hankpage]

Originally Posted by Berdan

Yesterday I installed a RigRunner 4010S DC power strip into the cubby hole of my entertainment console. I wired to the spare 30 AMP DC output of the power center. I can now plug in my Ham Radio equipment and operate in the dining slideout. The power converter is a little noisy RF wise but I can shut off the converter and operate directly off of battery power.

It's been a while since I played with electronics in RVs and converters have come a long way (I HOPE) but I had only found 1 source of clean power that fed the factory installed radio. Any other circuit that I wanted to tap into always needed a choke to avoid RF from the converter. Perhaps converter technology has not changed. JM2¢, Hank

[Berdan]

Hank, The technology is there but the manufacturers want to cut costs so they don't incorporate adequate input and output filtering and therefore cite FCC class B commercial specifications instead of residential spec. I installed a ferrite CM choke on the AC input which helps to keep the AC line from radiating. Unfortunately filtering the outputs will require modification of the converter assembly which I am not quite motivated to do at the moment.

[hankpage]

Brien, My amperage requirement was much lower than yours so I simply taped off of a nearby lighting circuit, added a choke on dc line and fed the radio. Static gone on shore power or off. Used the same method on old cars with generators and tube radios. Hank