How to select the battery for your HF tranceiver

Many hams like to make QSO outdoor, so the battery is very important to them. The wide application batteries of HF transceiver for ham are lead-acid and Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries.

Lead-acid(Pb) battery

Besides the low cost, wide application, mature manufacturing process, lead-acid batteries also have many other features to adapt to HF transceiver as below.

1. Good stability. So the lead-acid batteries are very safe to store at home or take them outdoors. 

2. Large instantaneous output power, and can meet the needs of high current discharge. The HF transceiver is higher output power than the handheld radio, even for QRP radio, the instantaneous current sometimes needs 5~10A.

But the capacity of lead-acid batteries is low, and its weight is heavy, and it is only suitable for long-term use when driving out, not the portable battery.

Lithium Iron Phosphate(LiFeP04) battery

Lithium Iron Phosphate battery is one of the popular portable batteries. The energy density of Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries is lower than that of lithium-ion batteries, but the safety and life are better. Besides that, it can be charged and discharged quickly, low cost, good high-temperature performance, small size, lightweight, high specific capacity, long cycle life, no toxic and harmful substances, no memory effect, and low self-discharge. Over-discharge to zero volts without damage, high-efficiency output: continuous high current discharge up to 10C, instant pulse discharge (10S) up to 20C.