Power Sources for Portable Operation
2020-06-02 Today I repeated the battery test only using my Bioenno 4.5Ah battery and my Wolf River Coils portable vertical outside in the back yard. I started at 1:00pm and ended at 3:45pm, two hours and 45 minutes on the battery. I called CQ in CW several times for a total of about 30 minutes. I had three completed QSOs, one SSB on 20 meters and two CW on 40 meters. All were short. Called several others but with no response. Conditions didn't seem very good for actual contacts. All was at 20 watts with my G90.
The fully charged battery measured 13.03 volts with the radio on and the reading at 3:45 when I shut down it measured 12.73 volts. I used 45 Wh total which is 80% of its rated capacity of 54 Wh. It clearly had more to give. Just from that, I'm thinking this Bioenno battery clearly out performs the Miady one which cut off at 70%. Have to think about that.
2020-06-01 This afternoon I decided to see what kind of performance with my G90 powered by my miady 6Ah battery.
So at 1:30 I connected it up and turned on the rig and left it on until the battery cut out at 6:30pm, 5 hours later. During that time I had 3 short SSB contacts with POTA stations and 4 CW contacts, two with SKCC stations and two with others. One of the CW QSOs lasted about 5 minutes the others were a minute or so each. I also called CW CQ a couple times totaling about ten minutes. My power meter registered about 55Wh consumed which is about 70% of the batteries rating. The starting voltage was about 13.7v and it cut off at ten volts..
At 4:30 I had used 33Wh. At 5pm I had used 40Wh and the voltage had dropped to 12.79 volts. All my transmissions were at 20 watts. I don't know if 70% of rated capacity is good or poor performance. The battery would likely be adequate for a typical afternoon of casual portable operating. It might be a bit limiting if one were working a POTA or other pileup for several hours.
2019-11-20 I got the miady 6Ah battery pictured below this past Saturday via Amazon. After charging it up I connected my Xiegu G90 to it and went about my normal operating which involved quite a few hours a day with the rig on and several, mostly CW QSOs each day as well as some playing with antennas, etc. Most QSOs were at 20 watts. Today, five days later, it shut down. Not sure if that is good or bad performance for a 6Ah battery but it did work! Seems for the $33.99 ($.47 per watt/hour) price, compared with $81.74 ($1.50 per watt/hour) that I paid for my Bioenno 4.5Ah battery back in February, it might be a good cost saving option for portable operation.. The charger I used is also pictured. I did have to insert a pair of power pole connectors in the charger output cable so I can use it with both batteries. The Bioenno has a special charge connector which is what the charger came with. With just the non-extensive testing I've done with both batteries I can't say whether one is better than the other. But the price of the miady certainly makes it attractive if it turns out to be a good battery.
Also pictured is a 7Ah SLA battery. At half or less the cost than the miady battery it is an excellent choice for portable power if the 5-1/2 pound weight is not a problem. The miady weighs just over 1-1/2 pounds. All three of them will power most QRP radios for many hours.