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[DU2XXR]

TL;DR Running digital/AMS and APRS at the same time takes a big chunk of battery juice.

I'm back to using my FT1XD as my primary radio. More accurately, I'm using my FT1XD and FT1D. Coming from the FT3D, I'm now beginning to appreciate the battery life of the FT3D more, because it's the thriftiest of the Yaesu digital radios, at least on paper, as we discussed here before.

I used to complain about the FT1 platform's battery life after being spoiled by my FT3D, which I used as my primary HT for over a year. But I may have spoken too soon. I was comparing the battery performance between FT1(XD) and FT3D with APRS turned on full time, as well as with digital/AMS standby in the A band.

With APRS on, I initially tried having digital/AMS turned off on the A band, and it resulted in some improvements. After all, based on specs, the FT1 consumed the most additional current when digital/AMS is turned on, at +65mA, compared with +20mA with the FT2, +6mA with the FT3, and +3mA on the FT5!

However, I realize that when both APRS (on band B) and digital/AMS are turned on in the FT1 (on band A), there was excessive consumption, and the radio became too warm even just on standby. It's not scientific (I was not able to measure current) but more of an observation. Thus, a fully-charged SBR-14Li would run out in around 8hours or even less.

I discovered that even on dual-RX and with digital/AMS turned on, battery life was significantly longer with the FT1(XD), for as long as APRS was turned off.

Having APRS probably resulted in the biggest hit on the battery, because the RX save feature was automatically rendered useless with APRS. The radio's receiver needed to always be on standby to receive APRS packets (whereas with APRS turned off, "RX save" only wakes up the receiver every XX ms and wakes up full-time when there is a signal received).

And probaly because standby was always ON when APRS is turned on, the additional load from digital standby on the DSP became an added culprit for heavy battery usage (that's the +65mA as per spec).

So my conclusion, having BOTH digtal/AMS and APRS takes a big hit on the battery. Having only one - either digital (plus dual RX on the B band) OR analog on the A band plus APRS will not be so bad.

My solution now is that I use my FT1D for voice - our Fusion repeater on the A band and our 2 meter FM on the B band or for crossbanding when I am near my home. And I use my FT1XD primarly for APRS, sometimes using the A band for analog.

By the way, I'm using the vinyl case on both radios, as some of my batteries have their tabs broken off, and the case holds them secure against the radio. It's not as good as buying new batteries, but I have a handful of SBR-14Li that still perform well except for having broken tabs.