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--></style></head><body lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div class="WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal">Save those old Headlamps. The HIGH beam filament is usually still good and makes an excellent load (near constant current) for battery testing at 5 amps.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">I put it on a fully charged (5 year old) 20 Ah battery and it dropped from 13.8 down to 10.75V (the full capacity drop-out point) in 3 hours. Thus the capacity of the battery is about 15 Ah.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Here’s why I did the test: I had to pre-test some 20 Ah batteries to find one to carry up a half-mile 300’ hill and then 100’ tower and run my station for 4 hours guaranteed. Years past, I had lugged along several batteries (heavy!) to make SURE my station would operate (since I never have any idea of the capacity of all the junk batteries I have lying around.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">This year, I PRE-tested my batteries with the headlamps. One was 15 Ah, another was 14, the third was 10 and the worst was 1 Ah? Wow, my luck would have been to take the 1Ah one. But this way, I only had to carry the 15 Ah one and had full confidence it would last the entire event. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">So don’t carry unknowns into the field. Test them first with a headlamp.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Just a tip,</p><p class="MsoNormal">Bob, Wb4APR</p>
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