priority watch and power save

Dave Martindale <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.recreation.radio.hardware.icomr2
Message-ID <[email protected]>
>Anyways, what is a battery saving plan for monitoring just two
>frequencies?  Say cops and ambulance; from the previous discussion, we
>know that putting the two in one memory bank and then doing a bank
>scan will enjoy no savings.  OK, how about cops in VFO, and ambulance
>on "priority watch".  Wait, the 5 second checking of priority must
>mean we will never enter long enough restful states to enjoy power
>save function benefits.  OK, never mind.

When monitoring a single channel, what matters is that no carrier is 
received for longer than 5 seconds.  I don't see why checking the priority 
frequency would necessarily change that.  The radio could be checking the 
main channel every 1.2 seconds and the priority frequency every 5 seconds, 
and still spend most of its time with the receiver off.  The radio isn't in 
scan mode, and it makes sense for battery save to activate, so you might be 
saving power - it all depends on what Icom's programmers did.

But I don't know what it does in this case; I've never used priority watch 
myself. Why not set up your R2 with a priority channel as you suggest and 
then monitor the current it draws, like I did?  All it takes is a couple of 
test leads, an ammeter that will will read 100 mA, and a source of 3 VDC 
(including a pair of batteries).

The same method can be used to explore how battery saver mode interacts with 
CTCSS.  If the radio detects carrier but CTCSS is missing or the wrong tone, 
the squelch doesn't open.  Does this reset the battery save timer, or not? 
(I.e. is it receiving carrier or opening squelch that's important to battery 
save timing?)  I don't know, since I hardly ever use CTCSS, but anyone who 
does care can easily find out for themselves.

To quote someone else, "One well-performed experiment is worth a thousand 
expert opinions".

        Dave


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