Jim Weir - Radio Receive Current

Nothing earth-shattering, just an idle curiosity. Several years ago, I had to
replace the Escort 110 in the Fly Baby with a radio that met the tightened FCC
frequency specifications. I bought a heavy-duty power supply from Rat Shack to
power it, and it now lets me listen to CTAF in my den. When I was
trouble-shooting the replacement radio last summer, I brought the 110 down to
the airport to set up a tape recorder to check how it sounded when I was in
flight.

It sat idle since then, until I decided to bring it home. I thought I could
maybe replace the big power supply with a wall wart...I've got one rated about
1.2 amp at 12VDC. I figured that should be enough for a receive-only setup, but
exercised the better part of discretion and decided to measure the actual
current draw.

The result surprised me: About 2 amps, in just the COMM receive mode. Squelch
up, squelch down didn't seem to make much difference.

I admit this is an old radio, but it *is* solid state (no tubes). I didn't run
it for long, so didn't even find out if it actually still receives.

Does this seem normal for DC current just during receive?

The Escort 2 I replaced it with is rated just 0.5 amps during receive, and the
ICOM IC-A5 that replaced *that* runs for hours on a set of AA batteries. Were
those first-generation solid-state radios really that inefficient?

Ron Wanttaja