¿ªÔÆÌåÓýThe relay draws 30 mA/hr and on full "QRO Operation" at 5 watts output the radio draws 2 A/hr when TX, markedly less on RX (250-450 mA/hr) per published Mfg specs. See:?It's on the order of a couple percent of increase in power consumption, which my back of envelope calculations put at about one minute of lost operating time for every hour of battery life. If a battery pack gives you 4 hours of operating time off the front panel BNC antenna connection then by choosing to use the rear SO-239 your operating time dropped to 3 hours 55 minutes, is that really 'significant'? I guess, maybe, to some, but the average user, since we started using the latest battery technologies and not relied on a tray of AA NIMH cells in the internal battery tray to power the radio can easily carry an external battery that can provide more than enough battery life to satisfy their use requirements/desires and afford them the luxury of using the antenna connection that best suits their feedline connector without worrying about the power consumed by the antenna relay. (I imagine the early FT-817 owners, 'back in the day' worked very hard to squeeze maximum use out of the rechargeable batteries that the radio used, much like the scene in the HBO series "From the Earth to the Moon" where NASA engineers were trying to find a way to stretch the useful life of the battery on a struggling Apollo 13 mission - see:??- but we live in a different world full of windcamp and external LiFePO4 batteries today...) It is a difference, I'm glad it's documented, and while I personally don't find it 'significant', I will acknowledge that some hold a different opinion. My $0.02, Ken, N2VIP On Apr 19, 2025, at 22:50, Eric van de Weyer <groups.io@...> wrote:
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