My Temp. Base Setup

[hobbz]

Since I had an old Cobra 25 laying around, I peaked and tuned it, and then did this.....
The power supply is a modded computer power supply and is rated at like 28 amps +12dc
In the last pic you can see the antenna that I am using. Just a lil firestick inside.





This is just temp because the 2nd weekend I am going to be getting 110' of tower and split it with my uncle. I have a patriot 12 antenna but might upgrade to a a99 or imax2000. I can't use the pat12 right now because I don't have a long enough piece of coax yet.

I will probably keep the lil 25 for a few months then get a 2517 base. I have a kl300p on the way right now to use with this setup, but would like to get up to 800w or so eventually. I think I can get a texas star for cheap from family member.

Hopefully 50' of tower will be enough to get me out of the valley. With my indoor antenna I can talk about 10 miles max right now.

[Porch Boy]

that is a really cool mod on the cpu power supply! 1337

[CamoRedneck]

Yea I'd like to see how ya modded up that power supply.

[hobbz]

Here is a link to a wiki that explains how to mod it.

[Please login or register to view this link]

[Ricky]

Nice. that is almost how my base setup looks like. ill post pics later. i have that same meter, it works pretty good.

[PRO151]

Hobbz: I am not nitpicking you my friend, I just don't want you to get everyone's hopes up about cheap, High Amp power supplies. I think that if you will go back and look at the rating label on the PC Power supply, you will find that the 28 amp rating is probably at +5VDC.

I have a Thermaltake Purepower, ATX 12V that I am going to set up as a power supply just to be able to say "I did it". The rating label on mine has 3 different output voltages available and 3 corresponding ratings; 40A @ +5VDC, 30A @ +3.3VDC and 18A @ +12VDC.

Have you checked the output voltage to see exactly what it is? Most power supplies that you or I would buy for a radio are rated at 13.8VDC out put and I am wondering if the PC power supply actually is tightly regulated to hold only 12VDC. If you have a meter and time to check it, I would be interested to know the true output voltage.

Your supply, even though I can't see the name on it appears to be a little smaller than the one I have. It should still be more than enough to run a stock or slightly modified radio, just watch out that you don't overload it and drag the output voltage down and damage your radio.

I think everyone should try this project, it is cheap, easy and fun.

Keep on Keeping on.

[hobbz]

The power supply I bought has pretty high ratings. Yes the 28 is for +12vdc.

The power supply is putting out 12.08V but most have a pot in then that you can adjust to up the voltage. If you were really feeling froggy you could take 3 power supplies and run the +5vdc from each and you would have 15v power supply with a very high amp rating. If you do that though, you have to make the 2 extra power supplies into floating grounds...

Like I said, this is a temp setup for me. I have a 4 amp power supply that worked fine for that little cobra but I wanted to play... I am the electronics nerd with experiance in 2 way radios so my setup will always be changing. I plan on building a 100w amp just because eventhough I probably won't use it more that a day or 2.

[PRO151]

Got it. Thanks for the voltage info. keep us posted on the amp build also. I might get brave and try to build one at some time for a base amp.

[hobbz]

To build a 100w amp it is gonna cost you about $100, so really it isn't worth it, but stuff like that is fun to me. You are better off buying an amp because it will be adjusted and tuned unlike one you build yourself.

[PRO151]

To build a 100w amp it is gonna cost you about $100, so really it isn't worth it, but stuff like that is fun to me. You are better off buying an amp because it will be adjusted and tuned unlike one you build yourself.

Unless you have access to most of the parts which will be discarded as "Scrap" from the plant you work for. The hard part is getting a property pass to get the parts out. I kid you not, we will throw absolutely perfect parts in the scrap dumpster, drives me crazy!

[hobbz]

Where I work now, eventhough I work in electronics, We don't deal with circuit board level stuff. In a steel mill, there isn't much of that to go around besides computers...

[KG PackRat]

In the last picture of that page, it shows adding different power lines together to get more from the power supply. So, in theory, you could get 24volts from this thing?

[hobbz]

computer power supplies have +3.3 +5 +12 -5 and -12 inside them. The +3.3 and +5 will usually be 45A+ rated and the +12 will be anywhere between 15-30A the -5 and -12 are usually rated less than 1 amp.

24 volts from this wouldn't get you much current to work with.

The power supply I have is rated at 348Watts on +12v which if you do the math equals 29Amps.