Amateur Radio Station 12Volt Power Source
with Battery Backup

By: Dave KQ1L

I have used this setup for many years to power my home station and some of my Repeaters.

At present my home station consist of four Packet Radios, three VHF/UHF Radios and one HF radio all power from this 12 Volt power source.

The battery consist of two 6 volt Golf Cart batteries in series. You can use any deep cycle battery of your choose.

The AC power supply is a standard ASTRON 20 Amp unit with the output voltage set to 14.6 Volts. The Rectifier is a 50 Amp bridge but you can use two single 20 amp devices if you prefer. The trick is the 12 Volt 50 Watt Lamp. This lamp is in series with the ASTRON supply to limit the charging current to the battery. The most the battery would ever see is 4 amps. That's assuming a dead battery. Once the battery is up to charger the lamp acts as a variable low ohm resister to keep the battery at full charge without over charging it.

For the Positive and Negative Buss I have been using the Electrical grounding Buss obtained from a local hardware store. This make for a nice terminations strip.