Johnny Five Needs Juice: Ham Radio's Battery Revolution

We're thrilled to have you here , as always , and so , whether you're a regular listener or maybe you're tuning in for the first time , we appreciate you and thanks again for joining us in this episode tonight . So before we always get into the show , let me introduce myself . I'm your host , eric callsign N1JUR , and I'm with my wonderful co-hosts . It's Paul .

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And todd's got his . So , uh , and paul's in transition . You have to get me still billing out the command center there . So , uh , you know , it's all . Uh , you know , stacked in and put away , it's nice and safe .

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You know other hams out there and so you know you can always head over and learn more . And again , thank to everybody who's been sending awesome photos of all of their hammies out there in the wild . So keep them coming for sure , all right . Well , we always love feedback and we've been getting a lot more guys . I'm pretty impressed . I don't know about you .

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We don't know when we record it , it's always a surprise to us . So you need to obviously head over to our YouTube channel , click that subscribe button , make sure you ring that bell and then you'll be notified when we go live . And we always have a blast , guys . You know I love hanging out with you guys on a live show .

We always , you know I think we bring some really cool people on the show , especially with the Poda Power ladies , that we Poda Power well , the Poda Power crew and you know the women in , you know the Poda Party .

As I'm tromping over my words again today I told you man , this can't remember shit , stuff's really affecting my brain that you know all come on live show . So you know we thank you guys that all support us during the live show and you know you can come be part of the fun .

So with that , let's kick into our first episode , first segment here , not episode , because we're still in the freaking episode .

So it's going to be a Georgia State Parks on the Air event coming up on April 5th and 6th that he wants to share , and we have a great website called gaparksorg and a Facebook group . So if you guys are down in Georgia you're going to be in Georgia on April 5th or 6th Go check it out and it looks like they're going to have a Parks on the Air event .

So it sounds fun , sweet .

So , yeah , if that's something that interests you and you're in and around those areas and you live in those states , you know , maybe you guys can , you know , hang out with the Free and Ham folks here . We'll come , folks here would come do an impromptu poda activation with you . So Todd would love it , I'd love to see it .

Uh , you know , we'll make sure we read it on the next show . So , all right with that , let's roll into our next segment here doing good , good doing good you do , that's good , do good do good , you're doing good , absolutely I do good .

But you know , know , however , we sometimes always allow those stupid negative voices to overshadow all that enjoyment . So , you know , I'm gonna say , I'm gonna raise my fist and say bring on those good deeds . Yes , bring them . And where can you do that ? You can do that here . So we want to share . Or we want you to share a story with us .

So whether you've done your first ham radio experience with a total stranger while you activate a park , maybe teaching a student or family member or maybe a neighbor about the joys of ham radio , or you got to demonstrate a new technician the thrills of HF or clubs field day , or you and a bunch of other people just got together , formed a club and started doing

poda , you know we want to hear about it . And that actually leads me into a submitted story we just got from Sean Greathead call sign Alpha , alpha for Alpha Tango . And he writes I'm not sure if this qualifies for your segment , but about five of us have formed our own club this year . Way to go , guys , nice job .

We focus on having fun , learning and promoting the hobby Checkmark . We do a lot of group activation at parks and we also are going to set up tables at things like homesteading markets and 4th of July celebrations , not to promote the club but to promote the hobby . We plan on having and we plan on having radio going .

Oh , there's a little bit of a run-on sentence here , but I'm sure it was just one long train of thought , but that's all good , sean . So we were planning on having a radio hunting poda . Oh , oh see , ah , okay , sorry , now I understand how he wrote it .

It says like homesteading markets , 4th of July celebrations , not to promote the club but to promote the hobby . We plan on having a radio uh doing , uh , listening to uh stations as we're hunting for photos so people can hear .

You know , we're gonna hand out flyers , he says , and let them know about ham studyorg and have info on other clubs and areas that do testing and the cool part , which is really fricking awesome . Well , we lost Paul there . We'll keep it plugging away until he pops back in .

We gave that club a fun name , and so I've got a photo and we'll post this in our discord and you can check it out . They call themselves the hillbilly ham amateur radio club and he threw a photo , endorsed here and I'm if you're on the live stream , you'll see the photo , uh , or in the the video here you'll see it on the photo .

And he says my wife and I hunt and activate a lot together and we've got eric and paul a few times , but not todd . Come on , todd , really , there's your goal . This is your 2025 goal is to hunt todd um . And so hopefully he says uh , he's studying for his extra and if he's not , he's slacking . Love the show and all that you do .

Thanks again , sean AA4AT .

It's like did you happen to know your Christmas cards got a black kid in it Kind of like you have to go on you know our discord to check this out , but it was really cool . You'll get a laugh out of it and I'm going to leave the comment in the honor discord .

I should say and you can always , if you want to those type A folks you can be so gracious . You can send Paul N1OG a Winlink mail and if he receives it via RF , we're going to hold it to you . We're going to make it a little tougher . Anybody can send it via Intel net .

But if you can send it via RF to him , then you know we'll make sure we we put you in the list and when we do our gathering for all those folks that have done the past , we'll make sure we invite you on that big shindig and have a big blast .

All those folks that have done the past , we'll make sure we invite you on that big shindig and have a big blast . So you know , if you're so inclined you want to try that . Please send it Paul's way and we will be glad to read it on the show and give you the credit too as well .

All right , so , without further ado , the highlight of our show and you know the superstar star and now for something a little extra with Todd W1STJ . All right , catch me .

I had Montezuma's Revenge over the weekend , meaning the neurovirus , and the only one song that kept running through my head over and over in between the times I was getting up to run to the bathroom was our Live Free and Ham song .

Every time and I was like by the time I woke up the 25 hours later I was like I can't stand that song because my head just keeps playing it over and over again because it's so catchy , because I said to myself that's a catchy song . The Live Free in Anaheim podcast , exactly , no stop , this is going to do it again .

My head's just going to happen in the background , all right ? Well , you know , you've heard it here . This is where we help our Todd study for his extra class license . Each episode we pick three questions from the extra class question pool to test his knowledge , hoping he gets his upgrade .

And if , once he gets his upgrade , I don't know what we're going to do at this point , but we'll decide that later , or maybe we'll leave it to our listeners to decide .

If you'd like to follow along , you can always head over to hamstudyorg , which is a great resource to help and prepare for your test , and it's recommended by three out of four volunteer examiners because it's always the ARL just never responds to our comment at the time of any time of the survey .

So , without further delay , we hand it over to the guy who orchestrates all of the VE questions , apparently in Todd's mind . Go ahead , take it away , paul .

A more efficient digital code would typically make the symbols shorter in time so that more can be sent in a given period of time without increasing the bandwidth . It is impossible , may become true at some point for bitrate . Since the since Shannon information theory , limits for power and bandwidth have been exceeded .

Generally speaking , it is not just impossible to increase the symbol rate , especially when the symbols are inefficient . So using forward error correction is a particular bad answer , since this one just introduces additional overhead , so no necessary effect on the symbol rate , and it only lowers the net bit rate due to the transmission of redundant information .

If you just remember , symbol rate is about efficiency . It'll help you remember that . There we go . Very cool . Question number two which digital code allows only one bit to change between sequential code values ? Is it A binary-coded decimal code , b extended binary code , decimal interchange code , c gray code or Extended ASCII Ski ?

In some cases , all three values change between adjacent values , for example , from three to four sequence the I'm sorry , from three to four . The sequence goes from 011 to 100 . So an example , gray code get ready for this 000 , 001 , 011 , 010 , 110 , 111 , 101 , 100 .

In this case there is still a unique encoding for each possible value , but You're going the wrong way . There is still a unique encoding for each possible value , but only one bit changes between the adjacent values . Gray codes are useful components for implementing hardware and error correcting codes .

Some technologies , like magnetic disks , can't reliably detect more than one change every so many bits . That was a very thorough explanation , very appreciated .

They start with D , so it's something to remember , and you can think about harmony between analog and digital . Okay , so there you go , nice . What do you think ? I could use a good ass kick , and I'll be very honest with you .

And so , as we always like to say , if you've recently got your license , or maybe you just upgraded , you know , and we want you to be recognized , so we want you to send us an email , or you can hit us up on the Discord or , you know , send us a text message , whatever .

So we can you , we can share in your glory and honor you in our next episode for all that hard work and effort you put in , and we'll make sure we always do that every show . So if you haven't done it , please send it our way . We want to share with everybody all your great success and celebrate another one to the ranks in the ham radio community .

So very cool , all right . Well , in our usual way , we always ask the rounds how is your ham radio week going ? And we'll start off with you , paul how's the ham radio week going for you ?

I'm still working out some complications with that , because I'm trying not to punch a hole in the RV to run coax and other things outside , and so there is a factory pre-wired cable television television 75-ohm jack on the outside and there are two drops on the inside . Of course they're on the other side of the trailer , but that's all right .

That's all right because what I'm going to do is I'm going to go from here to the next closest drop with 75-ohm , so it'll be 75-ohm from the radio to the drop and 75 ohm to the outside , and then I have to do some calculations on what the remaining length of 75 ohm coax that I need in order to get the resonance where I want it .

Um , but yeah , it's , it's just gonna , it's gonna be some experimentation , uh , a whole lot of uh . Use my AA-55 zoom antenna analyzer and I might even get to play with my tiny SA . Who knows ?

Somebody cut out , popped out one of those side glasses and put a plexiglass in there with bulkhead SO239 so he could slide the window back and forth but he was able to kind of turn it into like a panel without , like damaging the other glass .

I don't know if yours has that capability His is a little older trailer but I don't know if they allow you to replace those panes of glass at all .

I can have a whole bunch of radios back here .

I mean , you've got a bunch of more stuff to haul over . Are you bringing the ?

So looking forward to all that stuff on your channel soon . Um and uh , you know we can't . You know we got to bring it up again , I know . You know if you missed our live stream , you know N1OG over here hit his 3000 mark of subscribers . So , um , you know , I'm just slowly on his curtails here and I should be hitting 3000 .

So what's that mean to you ? Well , you know , us knuckleheads are going to get together and join forces and we're going to do a uh , a co 3000 subs . You know , subscriber giveaway show . So keep an eye on both of our channels If you want to come and be part of that .

And Todd can come hang out and , you know , cheer us on or make fun of us , whatever , all good and uh .

I got the case and then the battery that I had , the 3,000 milliamp , didn't fit and I tried to get it to fit it , just it was not happening . So I ordered some next day delivery from Amazon . I got a 2001 . It fits good and I put it together .

I'm going to put this one in my Jeep and this will be my mobile one and my other one I'll just leave in my pocket and just bring it around wherever I go . But yeah , so it's been cool . Got them to work , flashed them , and but uh , yeah , so it's been cool .

Got him to work , flashed him and uh , still trying to figure out what the hell I'd use this for . I did come up with an idea , like if I was hunting and I was in a no zone and I was hunting with someone else and I didn't want to use a radio , I guess I could text them .

I was telling him about my Mish , this Mish-tastic , and how it was working and he's like , oh , he goes , let me go get mine in the car . And he had this like gooseneck antenna . I'm like , where'd you get that thing ? He goes oh , I , you know , I , oh , I bought it . I don't know where I got it . So went on the website and it's like 35 bucks .

I was like , what is it Not Team U ? What's the other one ? Aliexpress , AliExpress . So I go to AliExpress and I find the exact same one and they're offering it to me for $2.99 , free shipping . So I jumped all over it . So I'm going to be getting this gooseneck one that I'll put on this bad boy and stick it in my jeep .

So I said for 2.99 , you can't go wrong . So I totally , but uh , but yeah , so it's been . That's basically all I've been doing . I've been , uh , my shack's a mess . Still . I keep trying , I'm really trying to plan on what I'm gonna , how I'm gonna clean , simplify it , make it more clean .

It really comes down to , I think , a monitor and a new shelf to put the monitor on and how that's all going to look . Besides that , just sitting on a repeater , did the net again tonight , which was all good . That was about it . With that said , eric , how was your week ?

If you're in and around the area , you know we're doing our first tech night and so we're pretty psyched about it . It should be fun and we're focusing on mesh task .

It's funny , it's like it was the big thing at our winter field day and everyone was like all over it and there was , you know , pretty much a buzz and it's just like , well , dude , we should just do a big MISTastic thing .

So I'm working with a bunch of guys who are big MISTastic folks and they're thinking about building external nodes and bringing those for demos . But the whole goal I think for that night is going to be pretty fun . We're going to basically just bring your MISTastic gear . We're all going to program in the same way .

We're going to make it work so when everybody leaves there we can all talk to each other when we're in the area and not be like Todd it's like , hey , my device talks to my device , but what do I really do with this kind of thing ? We're exploring options and building that work here in the Northeast .

I know right , so I'm going to play around with that , see if I can have some fun . But you know , anyway , I'm kind of looking forward to it . It is kind of cool .

I'm pretty impressed that I was able to I'm not very tech , you know , building stuff that I was able to shove that little board and get it to all work and plug in the antenna , but I did find there is .

it does come with an antenna like this and I didn't know what it was and I sent pictures to Eric and Paul and I asked Bill and he didn't know what it was . But I did find out what that little flexi antenna is . That is an antenna if you were going to have an internal antenna inside the case .

So you would kind of wrap it around the , you know , maybe along the outside of the case and then it would work . So it doesn't have as much gain as the little nubby ones or the other ones . I'm going to try , so Nice .

So why not better than do what we call what's on your workbench ? It started out as everyone just kind of sharing , but then it turned into like , well , why don't we do a soldering project ? So it's been pretty popular every year and so we pick like one or two kits in the wintertime , and this one we picked a 10 watt uh , qrp , no four , was it four ?

Oh man , I forgot the name of the company . Is it a four winds or four mountains QRP club ? I think it is . Um , it is . It's a 10 watt watt um qrp attenuator , correct , it's four state qrp is where we got the kit from and it's 10 watt um , not attenuator .

I think it's a uh load , a dummy load , yeah , smd based dummy load with the leds and stuff like that . I figured we'd step it up this year and go away from through hole , since everything's going a little bit smaller and give our hand at SMD soldering pads and stuff , and so , yeah , looking forward to that one , we finally got to get that .

You know , together we have a couple of few stragglers that are still waiting for their kits , but once they get them we'll be doing that too .

So , yeah , I think we share this in a way that like , hey , if you've got a club , all you have to do is just come up with the idea , and I guarantee you have a bunch of people that want to try it and just go do it .

You don't have to wait around for approval a lot of times , especially if you know you're taking like a kit and everyone just buys their own kit .

You just have to find the time and a good way to you know a good place to do it in and do for our club , because you know it's not like it's a formal organized thing , it's just like go try it and have fun , and you know we do pretty good with that . So I'm pretty excited to see that going along . So , all right .

Well , that is always good to hear , but you know this is the part of the show where we all know , our listeners just , you know , kind of tune out a little bit , fall asleep in their chairs . Carlos , if you're sleeping , wake up . This is the good part . You want to listen to this one here because you know we obviously inspire you .

So we want to make sure you know we help you connect your wires and solder joints as best we can . So with that , you know , we're going to talk a little about , as we alluded at the beginning of the show , uh , batteries . You know I've been on a battery build kick .

Um , as I mentioned a couple of shows ago , uh , I was in the process of building a battery box and I know paul's been in the thick of it , thinking for the uh , the mobile command center there and and how he's going to fit that out .

Um , and todd's been obviously trying to nurse batteries back together and he's going to be tripping soon , so so he's going to want to change that around . So I figured , you know we mentioned , I think , when we did the POTA episode about gear and stuff like that , we were going to talk more about batteries .

But we must have fallen off the radar or something like that , because we could have devoted a whole show . So we figured heck . We're going to talk about batteries tonight , so if that's not your thing , totally fine .

But we're going to geek out a little bit and share some of our stuff and you know kind of what we're working on and and what we're looking to build , because you know part of that , in battery builds there's like , obviously , the off the shelf stuff which we all have for our gear and and activations .

But then you know we , we all have the desires to want to build those you know those geek battery boxes that you see on other YouTubers channels and and , uh , you know other YouTubers' channels and build systems that help us be more self-reliant . And so let's talk a little bit about that guy . So who wants to kind of take it first ?

Where do we want to go with this first ? Because we're going to kind of just be a little loose tonight on the format and show . So who wants to start somewhere ?

And so currently in the RV I've got one 12-volt deep-cycle marine battery up the front to power all of the 12-volt , including the fridge and everything . The plan is to get rid of that battery . I'll throw it in my boat or something . I'll keep it .

I want to put two at least 100 amp hour lithium iron phosphate batteries in the front to power all of the 12 volt throughout the trailer , because especially uh you know , wanting to do off-grid stuff like I , I plan , uh , I want to know that even when the temperature is cold , I'm still gonna put 13 volts to all of my devices , right , and it's not going to

be where you know , the battery is like 50 percent and now it's only giving me 10 volts like you know like a deep cycle right uh , which , because it it tends to cause problems , especially like with the , you know , the compressors in the refrigerator , um , where if you're not , if you're not putting good voltage to it , you'll wear it out and it'll very shorten

the lifespan . So there's that aspect of things . And then there's building the battery boxes and things like that . And then there's the batteries that we just buy when we take out with us for POTUS . We just buy when we take out this for potas , uh , and then then hold on you've got , you've got things like like this backbreaking . So this is .

This is the smaller of the two , but this is the all like , yeah , so this is the the thousand watt and you know , you can , you can charge it with solar and all that . It's super awesome . But so I just I just wanted to say that I think we need to break it up into segments , little bits and pieces , right ?

So since you're the only one right now with the challenges of large scale , we'll circle back on that one , because there's some good stuff that I want to talk about , that that you can maybe share , and maybe share your future plans too , about what you're looking to kind of scale , future-wise with that .

And it'll kind of hopefully inspire me , because I'm looking to get into trailers down the road not , you know , anytime soon , right now , but uh , definitely want to start thinking that and uh , getting into uh , more of RV life , since , uh , apparently my um , you know , yearly goal plans with the wife is to road trip to the grand Canyon , which I take that as

road podo trip to Grand Canyon . So it'll be pulling an RV . I'm not staying at hotels all the way up and down that strip , no , no way , sir .

Anyway , and then we'll we'll talk like mid-scale , so like what you do for your shack , kind of setups for emergency backup , and then , you know small scale , what's your podo rigs or you know , in that mid scale you can also talk battery boxes .

So if you've got some battery box ideas that you're thinking of and that includes some of your , like your complete go kit to Paul Todd that you're hopefully building soon , when that one gets built , we'll get into that a little bit , alright . So let's start podas . Let's just start miniature here .

So poda , we've touched a base on a lot of different setup styles . What's your kind of go-to for most ? Of what do you usually carry in your arsenal when we're doing a lot of portable stuff ? Like , do you have , what's your minimum number of batteries you use ? Why do you use that number of batteries ? And dive into that configuration a little bit .

I do have to say that , living up here in the northeast , if it gets cold and sometimes it's cold the casing starts to crack . And this battery starts to look like a bomb , right , and I don't think that TSA , because look at this , even you can see the batteries . Oh yeah , yeah .

I just don't think the TSA would be thrilled and I'm afraid if I shrink wrap it it's not in the quote-unquote original packaging they might think I messed with it or something .

So I'm looking to get a Dakota lithium battery but they're out of stock and uh , they have a little 10 amp one and uh , so , uh , I figured that would get me like to do a , a mobile pod . Uh , you know , a few hours , you know a hundred Watts , you know , get enough to get an activation and I'm hoping it's a little bit smaller .

I think I got to look at it , I measured it , it's it's , I think it's a little bit smaller and that , uh , it's all like solid plastic container so it's not going to peel or whatever . So it might be better .

And uh , you know , marvin told me about it and he is one of his sponsors on his podcast and I saw one at Winter Field Day that he had and I checked it out and looked at it and he had a bigger one .

But I asked him , I said , well , the smaller one you think worked for 893 and 100 watts If I was using 100 watts and he's like yeah , because you're not transmitting constantly , because you probably get four or five hours at it and I'm never activating more than four and five hours when I'm flying around , uh , doing work .

yeah , and that thing lasts forever , like it worked all field day and I didn't even charge it or have solar panels . So that's the one I have solar panels that I use to set up . But I was wondering , and maybe Paul you could answer this , and I'm sure I'm more like . I know LiPo batteries and I know that lithium , iron , phosphate are similar .

If you don't use them all the time , on LiPos you're supposed to discharge them down to like 50% . What about these ? Do they have to be discharged down to 50% or can you just keep them charged ?

So until I get to that point I won't actually be able to take a good long measurement of where it sits in its usual dormant state versus its active state . You said you had like three batteries , right . You said overall .

So I bought this and the thing worked awesome because I just plug in the charger to it and voila it , just it charged the battery . It's basically taking juice out of one battery and shoving it into another , right , it's basically all it's doing .

I did a camping thing one night and it worked through the whole night and lasted the whole night . And then I've got some attachments so like I can use it for ham radio too , like I can plug it , I can have the DC plug in and then put the power poles on the outside . And you know , you could use that too if you for an emergency or whatever .

But it's got like USB ports and stuff . I mean it's a little older than than newer ones that have come out , and I've actually seen , I think , one of the Jackery's I'm not sure which one has power poles built into it .

I mean , it's about the same size , maybe a little bit smaller than , like , an ATV battery or a garden tractor battery .

I wish I had gotten more because it's such a good battery it really is and not super heavy either for what it is . I've seen some of the Redodios or whatever , that for a 100 amp hour battery they weigh easily a pound heavier they do . Those are my three primary for parks .

Which is like the charger alone is like 190 something and they're throwing the battery in with it , which puts the battery somewhere mid split . So it's like , hmm , another 100 amp power battery and the charger at the same time . Yeah , I , I maybe could do that .

They've got a battery that I may want to upgrade to if I uh , once I get this box built uh to keep in the car , because it's got a heating option in it to keep the , the cells , you know constant temperature from freezing .

Now I've got a six-amp hour Denco that we did as a uh work , work , work bench build on our clubhouse on our clubhouse in our club last year , which was a really good , uh cool battery project to do . Um , and if you want to find out more of that , just go up to Dencocom .

He does battery kits and you can build your own for pretty good , uh , cheap , you know money , and it's it's , it's a , you know , really good , well quality , uh , you know battery . I've got , uh , the small little I think it's four and a half amp hour or five amp hour um brick for my forex fx4cr that I use .

That uh I keep forgetting to take out of the bag because it stays with that radio , so I gotta remember to charge that before . And I've got all my batteries now laid out in my you know corral and I'm sure that one's not in there .

So I gotta remember to move that um , and then I gotta step up to that which I have , the , the 12 , the 9 amp hour , um , and then I've got . Sadly , someone went with me to hro one day and I was like , oh , they do bio anos . And I went , I , I went , I want that battery , I want that battery .

So I have all these extra batteries that I thought I was going to use . Maybe I will use , but , like you know , the old adage is two is one and one is none is the attitude . So that's kind of how I treated the batteries .

My problem is I don't have enough chargers to keep all of them charged efficiently at the same time , so I have to just remember to rotate through . Then I've got a 12 , a 20 and a 15 amp hour . So you know I've got decent batteries . But the funny part is I always keep grabbing the 20 amp hour Any activation I go on .

That's always the one that's just like go to . It's getting beat up like Todd . So I had to re-shrink , wrap that one and that wasn't terribly too bad . The hardest part was just to peel off the label without ripping it , um , because the plastic is just so unforgiving .

But I've got that and um , I just , like I said , mentioned , as I'm doing , a battery box bill , but we'll get into in the mid tier of our bill process here . Um , you know the battery box and building and I bought a Redondo a hundred amp hour on a black Friday sale .

I got for a really good deal , so I jumped on that and and slowly building that box together and learning you know wiring and distribution and and current flow and you know appropriate , you know resistor and that resistor um , uh , bus bar , uh , fuses and all the other stuff kind of goes with it . We'll dive into that a bit .

But yeah , I , I I try to keep my batteries conveniently sized to a certain length because of where they have to go into and my , my bags that I carry . So , um , you know whether I'm carrying a small my camera bag with my poda gear in it or I'm carrying a small little beach bag . You know it's scaled to that size and I don't kind of veer off .

But my go-to has always been Bioano and I should try other batteries out there . I mean , obviously Rodoto is one of them , but not on a smaller scale . I got to take a look at another .

You know , although there's , I'm trying to think there's no , actually Redona , um , dakota lithium was the only one that kind of came to mind that I you know it was recommended by , obviously , marvin and a few others . So I may have to scoop it up or I'll just live , you know , and see how you do and and maybe buy one later down the road .

So , okay , well , that that's simple enough . We all , we all have our usual go-tos there . So let's kind of step it up a notch from that middle kind of medium tier . What do you guys got in your arsenals ? Do you have any like battery box builds ? You've done anything custom ?

Um , that you know is kind of we'll say , above 50 amp hour , you know , but not like uh , into the 24 volt kind of setups or 400 amp hours . You where you think a large-scale RV , are you guys ?

So I just leave it in there and I am . I've got a bunch of uh different parts for I was going to use for my go box , but I don't need them . But they're like you know , the , the connectors to put the uh , the , the connectors in the amperage , all that kind of stuff that I'm not going to use on my thing . So I still have them .

So I think what I'm going to do is play around with that cheap box and build a first battery box as an experiment and see how it works and then , if I like it , get some ideas and then I'll build a bigger one .

But I do keep it in this marine box , which is nice because it just with the strap , you can grab the strap and carry it around and then , when you open it up , you can just it's like that little black housing .

But one of the things that I'm I'm actually really proud of is I took , uh , I took four um car batteries that uh , I I got from uh casey casey , one nid uh , which was really nice of him to uh to to give me those .

But what I did was I I wired them together so that I had the combined power of the four batteries and I keep it on a trickle charger . And then I've got a 3,000-watt inverter and I keep the whole setup in the boiler room of the house .

That way , if the power goes out , all I've got to do is turn the inverter on , unplug the water heater and unplug the heater and plug them into the inverter , and then we've got heat and hot water , at least while the power's out .

absolutely perfect , and I mean it didn't cost me anything other than the wires to connect it and the inverter , so you know , did you run 8 gauge , 2 gauge or 0 ? I want to say I think it's 2 , 2 gauge pretty thick .

And I was like , oh man , I want to find a bigger cable just to like crimp a good end on it . And I was like this is amazing . So if you guys need a battery crimper , let me know , because literally it's like it made .

It took away the all of all the old guys in the club when I was like , hey , I need a battery crimper to do battery cables , they're like , oh , just put in a vice and hammer the shit out of it . I'm like , dude , oh , that that destroys the cable in the , you know .

And so when you hit this thing it's like butter , a couple of presses and boom , that thing is like , oh , professional . So , yeah , good stuff . Okay , so you are maybe thinking battery box future kind of for yourself .

Or you know , obviously you're in the command center and that's probably in your vocabulary now because you're thinking you know obviously a lot more portable stuff . You've got any ideas on what you want to go with or where you're going with it ?

And then of course , it's buying the drogue freaking maintainer or a meter and the shunt and all of the odds and ends to build it out . I want to do that because it's nice sometimes to be able to have something that you could literally just grab the handle and it .

It doesn't matter , you may throw it in the river and and it doesn't it doesn't matter , right . Like it's watertight and it's good and so , yeah , so I want to . I want to build , like the , the most indestructible watertight fricking that there is , um and and it'll . It'll be a fun , you know , learning experience doing that uh , very cool .

Well , and then , and then also , uh , I also got to figure out I've got a , uh , I've got a 3000 watt inverter that I bought for in here .

So because , like I said , two batteries is the minimum that I want to start with right at some point , I think I'm gonna , I think I'm gonna try and go to four batteries , at a minimum of 100 amp hour apiece , wire them together and have them connected to the inverter so that way , even when I'm , you know , completely boondocked , you know , in the middle of

of nowhere in the White Mountains , and I'm camping up there to do the 48,000-footers , you know I'll still be able to plug in the coffee maker and power that off the 12-volt , and I'll still be able to… and a microwave maybe .

At the same time yeah , so the in the rv the only things that run off of 110 is is the outlets themselves , the microwave and the air conditioner . And so , yeah , I mean , if I have a way to be able to run that stuff and still have that convenience aspect without worrying about running down the batteries .

And and then I've got uh , I've got a renergy uh 100 watt solar panel setup and I've got the , uh , the nice solar 100 watt foldable panels . Um , you know , so that way , I mean , at least while I'm out hiking I can be recharging the batteries . Sure , you know , but the big thing is being able to be off-grid and still have all of this functional .

You know the computer and the streaming stuff and you know the coffee pot and everything else for at least a couple days , and then you know I can go somewhere and I can plug in and I can charge everything .

There's a whole bunch of companies that make these devices , but so this All Powers one in specific , it's the 2,500 watt . It'll do a peak of 4,000 . So if you've got some high intensity , like your air conditioner or the coffee pot or whatever , that's going to draw a lot it'll take it or the coffee pot or whatever right .

That's going to draw a lot , it'll take it , but one of the added benefits of it is I can have it connected to shore power while I'm connected to shore power and then connect my computer and whatever I want to the all powers and it acts as a UPS , and so it'll maintain that trickle charge while it's connected to power , but as soon as the power goes out ,

oh so it goes in a bypass , oh nice . And there's no drop in power , it maintains . So you never see that loss . And actually , prep Ham Paul I was talking with him about it he's got the exact same one and that's what he does .

You know , so are you saying it would if the power went out ?

Will it , will it , you know , act as , as a UPS , where it'll give you that uninterrupted power supply , right , I believe that's what UPS stands for Um , you know , and , and then you know what is the total capacity . So you know how how much can you run off of it until it dies ?

Uh , and that was where I had seen these all powers , um , and he did , he did a very , very thorough testing of you know , the capacity and charging and discharging and and what he could do with it . Um , very , very , very good video . Um , I'll find the link to that . I'm just thinking .

Some people do that , but it might be easier or cheaper to buy one of those battery thing to run the electricity in your quote on shack your backyard shed without running electricity to it .

Yeah , I mean , if you threw if you threw a couple of solar panels I mean solar panels are pretty cheap these days on the roof to charge that thing and just let it sit Every time the sun would come out , it would be charging it and you'd be using it and you'd probably never have to do anything to it .

One thing , Right , because you're only your radio is running at a hundred amp hour , that's 4,000 watts , so I'm sure you're getting two of those hundred amp hours you know in terms of longevity and having enough wattage for everything .

You just plug into that and you've got , you know , light access , radio , everything you can think of , and you know , uh , plenty of time to to , you know , basically , charge up any devices you want . And it's pretty convenient for me , like I would be all over it .

I like the idea of having the power and then just getting renewable energy , like if you know , if you were out camping for a week in the Grand Canyon and there's no electricity and you had a solar panel , you could have power for a week without having you know . If you had a gas generator , you'd have to go out and get gas .

You know , a start of a good battery , ultimate battery box build . Looking forward to kind of seeing your ideas , I'm sure . But when I start talking about my build I'm not going to dive into too much because I don't want to give away my , my uh hopefully video release on the channel soon .

But , um , I uh finally dipped into the foray of thinking about building a battery box and todd and I talked about a while back and I did it primarily not because I wanted it for like a specific function , although now that I've got my hf build done for the truck , I'm like like , well , dude , in warmer weather this is just going to stay in the backseat of

the truck and I just had to power pole the damn thing to it and we're off and I can run off that a hundred amp hour , no problem , but you know where it's cold , you know I'm going to have to lug it around . But I wanted something that was , like Paul said , watertight . Abuse , you know , can dole out and deal with .

Abuse is not going to crack or fade , you know , based off the plastics and stuff like that in the case it's in . So I took a tough build case from lowes and they are a little pretty pricey but the the one I've got is a small little um , tough built , uh say here a .

Of course I'm going to wrong view here , but whatever those , in the show won't be able to see . You'll see my background . Let me actually change that over so it makes it a little easier for folks to see .

They even make a cooler like you can have a cooler . It can snap on to to it . If you want . You can mix and match and do whatever you want . So I basically have the toolbox which is just like a big crate with a lid on it , and then I have an open crate like a milk crate on top , but it snaps on .

I throw all my baseball gear in that and then if I need to get my tools , I just click the thing . It pops off and then it's right there . But they're heavy duty . Like you can literally like throw that thing out your truck and it'd probably still be fine .

And when I wanted a cutoff switch , so I put in a 40 amp , 50 amp cutoff switch so I don't have to worry about draining the battery with all the sundry you know parts solar . And then I've got four usb all on their own fused . And then this is a current USB which is going to be changed out to PD power .

I haven't figured out what I want to put here yet , if I'm going to put anything here at all , but I have the capacity to be able to add or expand .

But if I go into the inside of it here a little bit real quick , you know I've got a couple of things controllers , wiring , the sh shunt , all the battery fuses , but everything . Like I'm anal when it comes to making sure things are well tucked in and organized and , you know , well arranged .

I'll never use that , and they'll be like I just want a USB port or I want to be able to plug a wall outlet in . That was the only thing that I didn't know if I wanted to do . I was almost to the point of maybe putting in like an extension cord power .

But the one feature I really want to work on , like Paul was saying , where he has that connector that allows him to join all powers together , I , where he has that connector that allows him to join all powers together I wanted to buy another one of these boxes , put another 100 amp hour , another 200 amp hour in there or probably another 100 amp hour , because

I want to match them . And then I wanted to buy the larger style power poles you know the ones that look like almost Amphenol connectors , like the big gray ones that you put power , and I want to put one female , one end on one plastic .

So where these things click together , I can stack another battery on top of that and they'll fuse the battery from the bottom , so they'll basically just snap in . So now I've got 200 , you know amp hours uh plugged in and if I don't want to use I just take it off and set it off aside . So kind of thinking like that .

But you know I got to get this up and running first and you know , hopefully that'll be on my channel soon . So , uh , you know you'll get all the juicy details on that , it's going to definitely be pretty cool .

They , they also do like um , they also have like little you know , portable 30 watt radios with batteries in it , and you know . But I think it's cool because you can add in and customize it however you want to like your needs , add and customize it however you want to like your needs .

jackeries or whatever you really like are going to have to void the warranty to crack open the case to pull out whatever they put in there , and it's sure not a complete battery , I'm sure it's probably a bunch of cells all taped together .

So you end up , you know , kind of really just it becomes like almost like a rc battery , like after a while you just recycle them to get rid of them kind of thing , more than make them useful .

I might , I might , I might void the warranty , uh , and , and take it apart and see if I can't swap that out for power poles because we probably easily could replace that whole entire receptacle with a 3d printed power pole port .

So , like I have a cable that's a cigarette lighter , you know the DC plug , sure One is that , and the other end is you know the DC plug , sure One is that , and the other end is a power pole connector , yep . So why couldn't he just plug in , make that wire and plug ?

So now I've got the cigarette lighter plug and I could just power pull the end of that right . So for an example .

So we'll hold off that one because I want to talk accessories and maintenance at a second that you know we have tips and tricks there , because I know we all have a different little setup going Um , but you do you want to take a little time and talk a little bit about your kind of plans , your 12-volt setup there for the RV , life and trailer and what that

kind of looks like a little bit .

Uh , while the rv is it , it's built with a solar jack outside they call it a solar jack . Um , really , all it is is , uh , it's , it's an sae plug , uh . So you got to be careful , because sometimes the positive isn't the positive that you think it is . You know those SAE plugs . I absolutely hate them . But it is what it is .

It's already there , it's built into the trailer . So I think at some point , what I'll end up doing is just redoing it .

What I'll end up doing is , uh is just redoing it , um , and and and putting you know some type of a waterproof power pole cover or power pole uh plug there , um , but yeah , it's just , you know , having enough , having enough battery power to ensure that whatever I'm using that it's going to draw the highest amount of current , is going to not totally wipe out

the whole system , right ? So like the computer has a 750 watt power supply which that's a lot , you know so just for the computer alone has a has a big current draw . And then you add the fridge , the air conditioner , the microwave . That's where I've got to sit down .

I've got to do the math and I've got to say what is the maximum amount of power that I would ever be pulling all at once and how many batteries , and what do I need to fulfill that need so that I can go off-grid , still live in comfort ?

Well , water's easy , because I mean , I've got a 40-gallon freshwater tank , I've got a 54-gallon gray tank and a 54-gallon waste tank , so , you know , water should be no problem . If you're , you know , being conservative , you're not . You know , taking long showers every day ? Sure , right , but you know , but the battery power requires some're not ?

You know taking long showers every day , but you know , but the battery power requires some math , you know , um , and so , yeah , it's , it's going to be , it's going to be a little bit of of figuring out , uh , exactly how many batteries and which batteries that I I need to buy to be able to power everything for a week , say , right cool .

Now that I'm building battery boxes it's like a little bit more familiar now and all of my electronics kind of like nervousness of like oh , did I hook this wire up wrong and why can't I this follow , and how does electricity follow the path to ground , kind of deal all came back to me once I started building the box .

I'm like dude , why was I so worried about like wiring wires wrong ? It's simple , you know . So , um , you know . All that being said is you know it's interesting to see kind of how you come up with your , because I know a lot .

You watch all the other like RV overlanding shows and they're like , oh , we do an ornology set up and it's like $5,000 worth of maintenance equipment and I was like dude , you haven't even bought the batteries yet . Where the heck are you going to ? You know I don't even have that type of budget to think about building . You know that much of a intense setup .

But yeah , I get it . People go overboard a lot .

So let's um briefly touch on because I think we kind of touched on it already . But you know , from your charging perspective , what do you guys do in each of those categories for your maintaining your batteries , keeping them topped off ? Do you guys have one setup ? You have a couple of different setups . Are you just using off the shelf stuff ?

Anything creative ?

And then , for the 100 amp , I have a battery tender that will do life lifey batteries and just put it on there and it charges it up I mean it takes time . But I mean that big battery isn't like something I have to charge fast because you know you're not gonna use it every day right , right , I mean , it's like , I mean it's it lasts forever anyway .

So you know , if I know I'm gonna use it , but you know I'm gonna play around with it this summer and I'm gonna , I'm gonna hook it up to the generator and see how that works and how it keeps it going , and you know , I know I'll run stuff off it .

So it doesn't matter what kind of battery that , I have it .

So you know once , I think as years go on , you're going to start seeing like batteries that you're going to be able to have an app for you know and just be able to look at it and know exactly what it's doing .

I mean it'll top off the 100 amp hour after a long weekend in an overnight charge session , but sometimes you know like you need it to be a little bit faster , and so that's where you're , like a 40 amp hour charger .

So you've got some charging scenarios , and mostly it's just all portable stuff . Do you have either ? You guys have a , like we'll say , your battery station ? Because I know we had a talk a long time ago about maybe setting up a master station where you plop , drop and plug in kind of configuration . You guys have built anything like that yet .

Yeah , well , and then , and then I've got , you know , two different , you different power pole chargers . So , yeah , I set it all up . Oh , even AA's and AAA's . That's something we didn't talk about . Yeah , because the antenna analyzer takes AA's and I hate buying batteries . So I buy rechargeable batteries and then I keep , uh , you know , a spare set with me .

But then if you got to swap them out while you go home and you pull those batteries , you throw everything right there on the toolbox in the chargers for whatever they are , and that goes through HTS , everything like what are you using for rechargeables ? Um , so I'm , I'm using the . What are you using for rechargeables ? I'm using the Amazon brand .

Initially , I bought a whole bunch of Tenogy rechargeable batteries , aa's and AAA's . For whatever reason , if you don't use those batteries , they go down below saving voltage and then they won't take a charge . And so it's just a waste . So I've definitely found that when it comes to rechargeable AA's and AAA's or what are the vape batteries there ?

Uh , you know , even if , even if it's going to take you a little bit like , just save up so that you can buy it in bulk , because it's always cheaper to buy those batteries in bulk . But yeah , get the , get the better quality ones , for sure .

So I'll add that to the arsenal . But I built in my storage kind of ham storage area a whole shelving system for the incoming to outgoing kind of staging . So all my camera batteries for my YouTube channel , all of my radio batteries , all of the laptops and stuff like that all have a section on the shelf .

So all the cables for those type of devices , so like my iPad chargers , are already there ready for accepting , you know , charging power , the power for the Bluetooth keyboard kind of stuff I can just tether and charge and disconnect and throw it in the bag , kind of thing .

And so I've gotten to my place where it's like when I come home from a polo or whatever , I'll drop the bag there , take all the stuff out of it , throw it on the shelf to get it all charged , put the bag on the shelf and then so the reverse order is like okay , all this stuff goes in the bag , goes out the door with me and I'm all good .

The only problem I haven't worked out yet is how I grab my antenna bag with me . But I've solved that by putting more antennas in my truck . So I have options . So maybe that's how I fixed it . But yeah , I bought um , all of the uh . I bought a two uh battery tending kind of USB-C , usb-a , block charging .

I think it's like a 4,000 watt or whatever the highest wattage you could get to be able to do USB-C , pd and USB-3 . And so I have all of the short cables . So all the devices that sit on the shelf all have just a short cable that never leave that device because they're all glued to it .

So they all just plug in via USB-C or USBba um and charge from there . So that that's been a lifesaver because all my batteries now stay topped off and everything else like that . So as long as I keep following that suit , I'm good there . Um , I think the battery is smaller , something like that , like that uh , actually a little bit bigger than that .

It actually has eight ports on it , so a total of four usb c and four usb uh a , 30 ports and pd ports all in a brick and it's got a little . It's a chinese braid . I can't find it on amazon because I can't remember my stupid amazon password , um , but I'll post that in the show notes of what it is . You said 4 000 watts .

But it's like kind of a usb multi-port block that does up to 400 or 500 watts , I think it is . That's awesome . So that's enough juice . Yeah , it's really good , I got it . It's kind of a USB multi-port block that does up to 400 or 500 watts , I think it is . That's awesome . So that's enough juice . Yeah , it's really good , I got it .

It's a cheap Chinese knockoff but it was highly recommended and you know I got it for like a good Black Friday deal . So that solved the problem there . So , all right , let's kind of we've been humming along here and we definitely got a whole lot more we could dive in here .

Like most topics , we could just keep going Exactly , and we know we already lost half our audience already for the first hour . So all good there . All tongue in cheek aside there , all right . Well , so how can we wrap this up ? I mean any , you know . Last bit of advice .

You want to throw at somebody that you know , so maybe they're diving into 4A batteries and you know , hopefully some of our examples we've , you know , shown you kind of give you different options at different levels , but anything we want to throw in there that you might want to throw as a heat of caution to someone who's in the market to buy portable batteries .

And when you're shopping for batteries , yes , consider the price , but be extra , extra vigilant of checking the reviews and making sure that you know it doesn't have an artificial review rating right when you know these companies . A lot of times they will solicit people to give five-star reviews just to bolster their review status .

So make sure that you're going through and you're really analyzing the reviews for good , honest , actual users and not promo reviews , because , yeah , you don't want to do your research . Watch your YouTube channels , watch more than one guy .

And like Ryan always says , buy once , cry once , so don't always go with the cheapest one . I mean I guess you get what you pay for , because I mean for you , paul you're looking at , this is going to be powering a lot of your important stuff that you don't want it to just die out after three months of using it .

You want to have decent batteries in it and you know I don't have a lot of experience with batteries , except when I'm flying the model airplanes and I'll tell you they're , yeah , for eight minutes at a time , and it depends If it's cold it's like half that , but anyway there's difference with the quality .

So you'll see a deal and you see some of it is , or some of it is like brand name and stuff but I found good batteries by trial and error that are fairly like for the planes , that are fairly cheap , that work better than the brand name ones .

But again , that was me and that was a lot of trial and error and buying a shitload of batteries , probably probably more than I needed to .

But now I know which batteries I like and I think , with YouTube and stuff and the different options you have , just don't go on Amazon and pull the Amazon's choice and be like , oh , this is the one I'm going to get because Amazon says it's the right one , and talk to people that have them . Reach out to Paul .

You got his email , he'll tell you what he's found and he can send you links and and that kind of stuff . And I think that's the way we we get around it and , like I said , I think battery technology and solar technology is just getting better and better , exactly Right , and I just think it's going to be .

You know , in the future , I think we're going to be seeing a lot of these batteries running a lot of things and helping us get off the grid , yeah , and sure ?

But I think my best experience for me was when I was we'll use Podium as an example , because that's kind of where I started getting into the battery market was . I looked around , I , you know , I went to watch other people you know at HamFest and talk about other batteries and and ask people their preferences and why they went with one versus the other .

And and then you know , youtube was always a big kind of either reinforcement one direction or another . But yeah , you know that your first battery you're going to buy is not always going to be the last battery you buy .

And if you have that sense about it , then when you start to get to a certain place , you'll find that you're going to be buying exactly like I do . You buy a certain battery for a certain style or certain operating experience , and then all those bets are off .

Once you start getting into the bigger stuff , like when you start dealing with 100 amp hour , it's a whole new ballgame , it's a whole new way of thinking . So at that point you have to kind of relearn your strategy over again . So just know that .

You know you go into it knowing nothing and you're going to come out of it knowing a lot more and continue to learn a lot more about something as simple as positive and negative . You never thought of how easy it could be . So cool , all right . Well , hey , that was a good . You know battery discussion .

So hopefully you enjoyed it and if you did , you know you can always head over to our Discord because we'll start the conversation back up there , as we always do in our show channel there . So you know , let us know what batteries do you use ? Is there anything we missed we didn't talk about ? About ?

I know we didn't touch on solar , but we've talked about solar and other episodes . Um , so , you know , share your setups , share what you got .

You know , help others in the community that might be maybe looking for their battery setups for an rv or , you know , for their poda setup , or you know , maybe they're they're planning on becoming a station captain for field day this year and they're looking to do , you know , uh , all battery . Uh , you know , kind setup . So you know , show love .

Let people know what you do , and and , and you know you can do that over on our discord , as always .

Um , and so , if you want to help support the show , you know you can always connect with us by heading , uh , to subscribe to our YouTube channel and you can catch all of our awesome content over here , all of our shows and live streams , and you know ham diary content , you , our shows and live streams , and you know ham diary content .

You know we're always constantly pouring into that stuff . So , you know , let us know whether you like it , you hate it . Either way , you know we're kind of experimenting and trying stuff on the channel , um , and we are nearing , obviously , 500 subscribers .

So , you know , if you haven't subscribed , come on , subscribe , support the show , because by the time we hit 500 , we want to do at least our first 500 , uh , you know , uh , uh , subscriber giveaway . So you know , let's get those numbers up quick so we can , you know , get to get a celebration mode .

So , uh , with that , you can again leave us a review , uh , using our SMS link . And those are all of our show notes , um , and now you can leave us a voicemail at 9 , 7 , 8 , 2 , 3 , 3 , 1 , 1 , 4 , 2 . And if you want to help support the show , you can do that through our Buyer Subier links .

You can head over to our storefront at livefreeandhamcom forward slash shop or you can become a Patreon member and support us there as little as three bucks a month and you'll get some really awesome content and a whole bunch of other cool things that all of our members over on Patreon get to have .

And finally , you can always head over to livefreeandhamcom to learn about the show , check out the swag , see all of our shows and episodes there in the back catalog . And , as always , thank you again for listening from all of us at Live Free and Ham 7-3 , guys 7-3 .