Emergency Power Supply Connections

All ham operators know that Murphy's Law is the rule not the exception when it comes to emergency operations and connections to power supplies. Whether you're running from a battery supply, an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) Supply or a generic power supply that will give you 13.6VDC at the proper current for your radio on transmit, the weak link will be the connector.

Since radio manufacturers will not standardize the power connections, it will be up the individual operator to standardize the connection. The most common is a pair of wire strippers and a roll of electrical tape.

Hopefully everyone has used the universal color code, red for positive and black for negative. However your radio will not protected from over voltage conditions and will only work if you are connecting one radio to one supply.

But what if something has happened and you can't see the colors of the wires to which you are trying to attach your radio? Did you pack your VOM to test the polarity of the supply? And how can you be sure that you won't destroy your radio with an over voltage condition or not be able to operate for lack of enough current at the radio?

To take out some of this guesswork, in December 2002, the District Emergency Coordinators, in Western Washington, voted to standardize all the connectors by using the Anderson Powerpole Connectors in all of the EOC and other emergency operation locations.

This was a major step forward in standardizing emergency operations, but there was still the problem of how to connect multiple radios to one supply. Enter the power patch panels…

Mountain West Radio produces the "RIGrunner®" panels that accept the standard Anderson Powerpole Connectors. These panels allow you to connect multiple radios to one supply and delivers maximum voltage and current to the radio that is attached. (Not to exceed 40 amps.)

To eliminate the need for separate power supplies for each piece of gear in the station, you can employ one of these panels and be sure that the radio is protected from reverse polarity, under current and over voltage conditions. Some of these units even have built-in alarms to tell you if your supply has low voltage (this is especially important if you are running off batteries).