[amsat-bb] Re: A Fully Rechargeable Satellite Station

[Edward Cole]

Sorry if this slightly non-satellite chatter:

Lots of folks are amazed how far Alaska is from anywhere.  Well, it 
is 2400-miles by road from Seattle to Anchorage (traveling over the 
Alaska Hwy).  We traveled west from Pass Christian, MS (about 
50-miles east of New Orleans) on I-10 to southern California and then 
up I-5 to the Canadian border.  If you look at a map of US roads 
there are no tangental roads from the south to the NW so one will 
travel west then north then west then north, whatever route you 
take.  It is something like 1800-miles from LA to the Canadian 
border, alone.  We did a small detour over to the Oregon coast which 
added a couple hundred miles.  The trip took 22-days.  We took one 
day off in Gold Beach , OR for clothes washing and visiting with my 
wife's mother whom she had not seen in ten years.  BTW I live on the 
same longitude (151)as Hawaii (152).
photos of the van are here (scroll to bottom of page):
http://www.kl7uw.com/mw10g.htm

I spent about $10-15 on my wiring vs. $150+ for an AC inverter.  nuff said!

73, Ed

At 07:12 AM 4/29/2009, Jack K. wrote:
>To say I am amazed is not doing the English language justice, 6000 
>Miles from Ms to AK must have been via a round about route indeed. 
>My Driving recollections would guess it is more like 3800 miles from 
>St. Lou to Anchorage... But then I was not in your mini van or shoes...
>
>However the real comment is this, why don't you just get a 40 dollar 
>inverter, plug it into the ciggie lighter hole or hard wire it and 
>you have all the commercial type (117VAC) power you need, I ran one 
>in my semi for years, have one in my Dodge Nitro and it powers my 
>Dell Laptop, The HP printer/scanner I use for my business, charges 
>my cell phone, razor and anything else I need up to a 800 watts of 
>power. Rather than trying to re invent the wheel, why not use the 
>technology that is available, and in common usage by almost every 
>truck driver in the USA.
>
>DE Jack KD1PE
>
>  I was able to run that computer charging off
>>my wife's Ford minivan for the 6000 mile trip from MS to AK in spring
>>of 2004.  The vehicle voltage is damped by the car's battery and runs
>>about 14.2 volts when the engine is running and sags to 13.2v when
>>off.  I never had the computer running when starting the engine.  The
>>computer battery will also act as a huge capacitor for smoothing out
>>any voltage spikes.
>>
>>Most cigarette lighters circuits have a 15 to 20 amp fuse on
>>them.  That ought to work fine for charging/using with your computer.
>>
>>73, Ed - KL7UW