First you should find out if the standard AC Receptacle is backed up by a generator or alternative power source and the time required for the backup source to "come on line".
A sealed Battery in a vented Marine Battery Box can supply short duration equipment requirements while an emergency generator starts. Low voltage disconnects and a properly sized charger would prevent excessive current surges. The radio equipment transfer to and from the backup battery should normally be seamless. If you don't use a backup battery then some type of load surge management plan would be in order. You could possibly operate the repeater from the emergency power outlet all the time. Switching outlets on the fly would make most people very nervous and is probably not legal in many locations/examples. cheers, s. > "Laryn Lohman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > We have two repeaters, plus an IRLP computer, on one emergency-fed > circuit at a hospital. There are normally no problems with this. > During a recent storm, the AC panel circuit breaker tripped, taking > everything down in the middle of our Skywarn net. > > There are two receptacles near our equipment. One is normal power, > the other is the red Critical Power receptacle. What problems would > anyone see if we would feed everything from the normal power circuit, > and if it would ever trip off, switch to the red receptacle. That > way, if lightning trips the normal circuit, we would instantly feed > our equipment from the red receptacle. > > This sounds so simple, and I'm inclined to build such a setup, but am > I missing something obvious that could cause problems? Any better ideas? > > Laryn K8TVZ >
