"RST Engineering - JIm" wrote in message
m...
NiCads a

a. Horrible for the enviornment (that's the Cad part of NiCad)
b. Have a lousy self-discharge characteristic
c. Are relatively expensive.

NiMH a

a. Not too harmful of Mother Nature
b. Have a fairly decent self-discharge characteristic
c. Are relatively inexpensive (check out thomasdistributing.com)

You may also look into a LiIon pack, depending on which radio you buy.
THey are even better than NiMH.

Jim


I do not disagree with anything you said, defer to your electronic
knowledge, and do not personally have enough battery knowledge to have much
of an opinion. I deal with a specialist battery store with an owner who has
been very helpful and cost effective.

FWIW, His opinion is that NiCads will by far outlive (x10-30?) NiMH in terms
of total number of recharges, PROVIDED that they are charged by a proper
computerized charger which is properly programmed to both fully discharge
before charging then control the rate of recharge (high rate (~2hrs) to
start followed by low rate (~12hrs) to finish.)

He does not like LiIon and considers them hazardous. He regularly replaces
the (NiCad & NiMH) cells in computer and other battery packs but will not
allow LiIon packs in his store. I think he does sell packaged LiIon
batteries.

He also had a couple of other reasons (including cost, and others which I
forget) which led him to recommend NiCads over NiMH. IIRC, noname NiMH
rechargeables were 2-3 times more expensive.

He did convince me to buy the proper charger which IIRC was ~$70 but since
it will charge both NiCads and NiMH (and LiIon?) I don't think he was
motivated by the battery sale and would have sold me either.

He also said that in his opinion the best alkaline non-rechargeables
available are some very pricy branded ones which he did sell and the
Kirkland branded batteries from Costco which were the same but much cheaper.

IMHE alkaline battery life is very device dependant. I have a Nikon Coolpix
camera which is only able to get a few pictures before reporting low battery
but the batteries that will not run the camera will continue to run a
flashlight for a very long long time. I have been told that NiMH works
better than alkaline or NiCad in this application because they do not reduce
output gradually as they are used. I wonder if this is similar in
transceiver usage?

Happy landings,