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Apologies for such a noob, basic question, but doesn’t Ham radio equipment also rely on the same power that normal personal electronics use? I guess I don’t kno

Apologies for such a noob, basic question, but doesn’t Ham radio equipment also rely on the same power that normal personal electronics use? I guess I don’t know why Ham radio is immune from power outages.

sliken 5y ago
Sort of. Most ham radio equipment bigger than a handheld (ham's call them HTs) use 12V DC. So in a hurricane you could literally rip a battery out of a car and power your radio for a few hours, maybe even days if you are careful. This leads to wide compatibility for power sources across a large majority of ham radio equipment. 12V DC is easy to build yourself and is a world wide standard for many things, including amateur radio. There's tons of videos on how to build a 12v battery pack out of commodity batteries for whatever chemistry you are interested in, (LIPO, lead acid, and lithium are common). It's also popular target for portable solar arrays. You could buy something the size of a picnic blanket and rolls up. Add the solar that outputs 12 dc to a build a 12v battery pack (18650s and 21600s are common) and be able to be on the radio for hours a day, even in pretty challenging conditions. Generally running a ham radio off of whatever you can find around is much easier than normal equipment because most consumer electronics expect AC (which is harder from batteries, requiring an inverter) of a certain voltage (depending on use case and country) or they have a power cube that has a custom voltage and amperage requirements that changes for each piece of consumer equipment. USB is helping in this area, it's increasingly common and finding battery packs or solar cells that output USB compatible power is getting easier. But even today there's many logistical challenges, things like connectors (Microusb, mini-usb, usb-c), smarts (usb master, usb client, usb2go, etc), power limitations (different cables and power cubes have different max power), physical connector issues (like say Apple's phones), and various non standard additions to get more than 5V @ 1 amp over a "USB" cable. Wireless charging for phones is a morass of compatibility issues and the "USB" supplies for the chargers often use proprietary signaling, and despite the usb connector use non standard protocols and voltages. USB is generally more fragile and less flexible than 12v DC. It's much easier for instance to run 4 radios off a single 12V supply than it is to run 4 usb devices off a single USB power source. USB is also trickier, you need for instance some smarts to connect a USB device to a car's 12v battery, granted those parts are common.
ZanyProgrammer 5y ago
Ham equipment also seems quite large and bulky, based off every stock photo I’ve seen online, so I’m not quite sure how useful it’d be in a situation like an earthquake where you’d have to evacuate a building and take your possessions out by hand.
- tacet 5y ago
  my radio is about the same size of car radio. in fact it is meant to be mounted in car. YAESU - FT-857D
- sliken 5y ago
  Hand hands that are half as tall as your phone and 2-3x as thick are common. As our units designed to be installed in cars. Both can connect direct to other radios (usually on 2M or 70cm bands) or to repeaters (which are quite common). Having the closest few dozen repeaters programmed in is common, that way you can have a few for the closest dozen or so metro areas and often includes a state wide repeater network. Having access to these networks can provide a wealth of information from a device is easily hand held, can be worn on a belt, and still works even when the cell towers die. As texas learned, even just a cold spell can have significant impact on the power grid, which of course the cellular network depends on. If you are having severe weather, fire, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc the ham radio networks typically get really active, people working hard to spread useful information. Often have friends/family/connections to local fire fighters, doctors, nurses, etc that have a really good idea of what's actually going on and how the local services are responding to those challenges. Might want to try listening in on a local emergency net (you can listen to amateur radio legally in the USA without a license). When comparing what the local TV station broadcasts (and sends out over social media) to the local hams, I've found the ham based info to be significantly more accurate and timely. The news station seems to be focusing on the drama of it all.
- gsich 5y ago
  True, but there are portable ones for shorter ranges.
  - ZanyProgrammer 5y ago
Gracana 5y ago
I think the parent's point is that there's a lot of cellular infrastructure that needs power (and connectivity) for cellular communication to work. Point-to-point radio only needs power at either end, and when your radio runs on 13.8VDC, there are many convenient sources available.

sliken 5y ago

Sort of. Most ham radio equipment bigger than a handheld (ham's call them HTs) use 12V DC. So in a hurricane you could literally rip a battery out of a car and power your radio for a few hours, maybe even days if you are careful. This leads to wide compatibility for power sources across a large majority of ham radio equipment. 12V DC is easy to build yourself and is a world wide standard for many things, including amateur radio. There's tons of videos on how to build a 12v battery pack out of commodity batteries for whatever chemistry you are interested in, (LIPO, lead acid, and lithium are common). It's also popular target for portable solar arrays. You could buy something the size of a picnic blanket and rolls up. Add the solar that outputs 12 dc to a build a 12v battery pack (18650s and 21600s are common) and be able to be on the radio for hours a day, even in pretty challenging conditions. Generally running a ham radio off of whatever you can find around is much easier than normal equipment because most consumer electronics expect AC (which is harder from batteries, requiring an inverter) of a certain voltage (depending on use case and country) or they have a power cube that has a custom voltage and amperage requirements that changes for each piece of consumer equipment. USB is helping in this area, it's increasingly common and finding battery packs or solar cells that output USB compatible power is getting easier. But even today there's many logistical challenges, things like connectors (Microusb, mini-usb, usb-c), smarts (usb master, usb client, usb2go, etc), power limitations (different cables and power cubes have different max power), physical connector issues (like say Apple's phones), and various non standard additions to get more than 5V @ 1 amp over a "USB" cable. Wireless charging for phones is a morass of compatibility issues and the "USB" supplies for the chargers often use proprietary signaling, and despite the usb connector use non standard protocols and voltages. USB is generally more fragile and less flexible than 12v DC. It's much easier for instance to run 4 radios off a single 12V supply than it is to run 4 usb devices off a single USB power source. USB is also trickier, you need for instance some smarts to connect a USB device to a car's 12v battery, granted those parts are common.

ZanyProgrammer 5y ago

Ham equipment also seems quite large and bulky, based off every stock photo I’ve seen online, so I’m not quite sure how useful it’d be in a situation like an earthquake where you’d have to evacuate a building and take your possessions out by hand.

tacet 5y ago
my radio is about the same size of car radio. in fact it is meant to be mounted in car. YAESU - FT-857D
sliken 5y ago
Hand hands that are half as tall as your phone and 2-3x as thick are common. As our units designed to be installed in cars. Both can connect direct to other radios (usually on 2M or 70cm bands) or to repeaters (which are quite common). Having the closest few dozen repeaters programmed in is common, that way you can have a few for the closest dozen or so metro areas and often includes a state wide repeater network. Having access to these networks can provide a wealth of information from a device is easily hand held, can be worn on a belt, and still works even when the cell towers die. As texas learned, even just a cold spell can have significant impact on the power grid, which of course the cellular network depends on. If you are having severe weather, fire, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc the ham radio networks typically get really active, people working hard to spread useful information. Often have friends/family/connections to local fire fighters, doctors, nurses, etc that have a really good idea of what's actually going on and how the local services are responding to those challenges. Might want to try listening in on a local emergency net (you can listen to amateur radio legally in the USA without a license). When comparing what the local TV station broadcasts (and sends out over social media) to the local hams, I've found the ham based info to be significantly more accurate and timely. The news station seems to be focusing on the drama of it all.
gsich 5y ago
True, but there are portable ones for shorter ranges.
- ZanyProgrammer 5y ago

Gracana 5y ago

I think the parent's point is that there's a lot of cellular infrastructure that needs power (and connectivity) for cellular communication to work. Point-to-point radio only needs power at either end, and when your radio runs on 13.8VDC, there are many convenient sources available.