[CRAPRS] Solar power

[gary.bishop at mchsi.com]

I just have a one foot square panel in a frame on my deck.  A rather long,
lossy cable runs into the shack.  For my digi, I have considerably less
power requirements than yours.  The TNC is a TNC-X with the LEDs defeated 
for minimum power.  Also, where the 'XMIT' LED used to reside in the circuit,
I put in a reed relay to switch power to the radio.  Finally, for maximum
miserliness, there is a MAX-232 chip used for RS232 levels when talking to
it or programming it via the serial port.  This is defeated also, except when
I want to watch what's flying by.

The output of the solar cell (300 ma max) is enough to eventually fry the gel 
cell, so I inserted a simple series pass regulator set to 13.8 volts.  I also
have a Schottky diode on the output, to prevent the battery from backing up 
into either the regulator or solar panel.  When the battery is fully charged, 
that permits a whopping 20 to 40 ma to trickle the battery.  Not enough for 
damage.

I get some current from he panel even on cloudy days.  Heavy overcast doesn't 
produce much, but still many milliamperes.  Heavy rain, blizzards, and 
eclipses sort of cut into the charging efficiency.   :->

Speaking of flying by, I can sure tell when we are on the back side of some
low pressure front out east of here.  I start getting first bounce packets
from Wisconsin and Illinois quite regularly.  That was going on this weekend.

Radio?  At the moment, it's a Standard C528A.  Pretty soon (meaning as soon
as I get my taxes done, and I can fix the thing) I will switch it over to 
an Icom IC-2AT.  Pretty basic, power thrifty radio.  Runs all of 1/2 watt
on low power.  I have a 7 AH gel cell 'liberated' from a UPS.  It only 
tests out to 3.5 AH, but I calculate and verified with actual operation that
it should run a week with no external help, not even the solar panel.

With a PHG of 1160, it's pretty puny, but we really don't need much more
up this way in Marion.  Where we are lacking is north along Hwy 13, and
northeast up US 151.  I've been considering a couple of beams pointed that
way to increase coverate.  I have one 10 element beam I should have put up
last weekend during the ice and blizzard.  That seems to be the only time
the antennas stay up.  I've also been scoping out some high points that 
could house or host a simple digi.  We'll see.