Powering up Remoterig RRC-1258 and FT-857 radio from the same power supply

My antenna situation in home QTH is far from perfect. Sometimes I have been able to throw some wire onto a tree with mixed success, no chance to erect permanent antenna. The QRM level is also very high. It seemed to me that the only viable option is to operate remote station from home. To achieve this I have set an FT-857 in remote location along with some PC and begin to work digital modes. Shortly after I started to long for more traditional modes of operation as I like to do some contesting therefore I purchased second hand Remoterig RRC-1258MKII.

After setting the RRC-1285 and checking if it works I tried to power it up from the same 13.8V power supply as the radio is powered. Unfortunately I couldn't make it work. Every time I turned the radio on it turned of by itself, it looked like the RRC-1285 was resetting when radio powered up. The current inrush of the radio caused the voltage to drop enough to reset RRC-1258. Some quick research online confirmed my guess. I didn't want to use another power supply at the remote location so I quickly came up with the following solution.

Schematic diagram

The circuit is so simple that there is no need to make pcb however housing is a must. The power supply can deliver large current and better not to test it's current limiter shorting it out accidentally.

The capacitor needs to be at least 16V. If the RRC-1285 still resets on power up you can try larger values like 2200uF. I used 1,5mm2 wires but you can use much smaller wires as the device doesn't take much current. I added the fuse because the Remoterig manual says so.
Before putting the lid on I poured inside some hot glue to secure the components in place.

Inside view before pouring hot glue

It's ready!

Vy 73'
Artur

About me and about this blog

I’m 45 years old and have been interested in electronics since childhood. In my youth years I also started taking interest in radio technology, building simple receivers and later transmitters. I started to attend local ham radio club at 15 years old and got the license at 20. 

After that I had 20 years break from ham radio pursuing other interests also technical related. Finally in 2015 I applied for ham license again and since than I have been active on all bands all emissions trying to make up for lost time.

My main interests are DX-ing contesting on HF/VHF/UHF and of course some DIY electronics. On this blog I will share some of my ideas with you and also post them here for my future reference.