[amsat-bb] Put your portable AMSAT Field Day Solar panels to work!

[Koos van den Hout]

Somewhat unrelated to amsat-bb, but I will add my two cents.

Quoting Robert Bruninga who wrote on Tue 2016-08-23 at 12:38:

> Connect them to a 500W or so Chinese grid-tie inverter (under $150 on Ebay).

>From what I hear from other amateurs in the Netherlands it's a real problem
to find inverters that don't mess up the HF bands. Electronic inverters
cause noise signals which the long wires to the panels will put on the air.

> But again, this only works if you have a net meter account

In the Netherlands the 'old' electric meters are Ferraris meters which just
run backwards when more power is returned.

New meters are 'smart' (electronic) meters which count delivered and
returned power separately. The good thing (compared to the US) is that
Dutch smart meters only use licensed GPRS or CDMA frequencies to
communicate with the electricity company, not powerline communications or
amateur frequencies.

At the moment in the Netherlands the power returned can be crossed away
against power used from the grid and the excess returned will get payment
at feed-in tariff.

In my own situation we do not have a lot of roof space for solar panels,
but a solar panel is high on the wishlist for tent camping trips since this
makes our choice of campings easier while still charging phones / radio
battery.

                                        Koos

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