Just to expand on this and share my experiences. I have been running a remote station in Ontario for 15 years. The building is not heated or cooled at all.
It has seen from 100F down to -20F without issue. The radios have been Kenwood TS480 to a Flex 6300 and during the time, the amps were either an SGC500 or a KPA500. The TS480 and the KPA500 come right online from the coldest days possible. One day it took 10 minutes of full power RTTY to get the amp temp to read above 0C (32F). That is how cold it was. The Flex 6300 is only engineered to 0F for the FPGA as it is not cold temperature hardened. My solution to that is that I don't turn off the Flex all winter as the FPGA generates enough heat (about 5 watts) to keep itself warm. The humidity ranges from 20% to 100% and it can change from that in weeks if not days. That past week it has been mid 90's and about the same in humidity. I have a few tower control boxes and for the most part, they are open at the bottom to let any moisture drain out should it happen to get inside as I have given up on total box waterproofing. I have seen too many equipment boxes flooded, so 1/16" holes seem to solve that. Fresh water does not hurt most electronics. Yes, those in Salt Water areas have bigger problems. I've taken a KX2 out of a car that was at -20C and used it (yes, the LCD was slow). That same KX2 has been taken from its pelican case at +35C and used it. It might have been a bit off frequency but I had no way of telling or hearing if it actually was. I have yet to have an issue in the past 15 years that I can relate to being in a non-environmentally controlled room. The same is true for our cars that see the same temperature extremes without issues (other than car batteries that fail). I take that back. On one car, my XM radio antenna would fail if it got too cold. Welcome to the Great White North! The short story is, the electronics we use today are well engineered and can handle temperature extremes and with a bit of ventilation help, they should work just fine. Mike va3mw On Thu, Jul 5, 2018 at 7:04 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > We engineered electronics packages for these types of environment, from > desert to arctic. Keys for success: > 1- Inside of housing must be designed to route any condensation away from > the electronics. Design ENCOURAGES condensation on normally cooler > enclosure surfaces, not the electronics. > 2- A compartment heater (actually a high wattage, low value resistor) is > ALWAYS energized to keep interior air temperature and temperature of > electronic assemblies slightly above exterior. > 3- Compartment must be absolutely air tight so as not to allow breathing as > atmospheric pressure changes. > Condensation that occurs collects on housing and drains to bottom of > enclosure. If cooling is required, it must be done with heat exchanger to > avoid ingress of outside air. > BTW, mission critical equipment was housed in nitrogen purged compartments, > including conduit which is major source of humid air flow! We required > that > equipment stored during construction must have compartment heaters > energized. > So, it can be done. > Ken ke4rg > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] <[email protected]> > On > Behalf Of Dave Sublette > Sent: Thursday, July 5, 2018 8:38 AM > To: Elecraft Discussion List <[email protected]> > Subject: [Elecraft] Equipment Storage and operation > > I should start with an apology to the group. Although I stand by what I > said in a previous post, I feel that the way I expressed myself was in > violation of decorum standards for this group. I am sorry for that. > > <snip> > > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:[email protected] > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > Message delivered to [email protected] > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
