In the spirit of experimentation, I wanted to find out exactly how much power my QRP radios consume. I’ve had a Yaesu FT-818ND for several years now. It’s built like a tank but fragile at the same time. I bought a set of rails for it a while back to protect the knobs and the face from breakage should the radio be dropped or bounced around in a bag. I recently bought an Icom IC-705. It has a plastic case and is just as fragile.. I do not yet have a cage for it. I like both radios but wanted to find out how much power they use. Initial settings are max power for each rig.
These radios sip power. When on the 2 meter band in FM with the squelched closed the 705 uses less power. The 705 pulls .25amps while the 818 pulls .33amps. Just listening you can go 4 hours to 3 on 1aH.
FT-818ND
Idle FM 2M Squelched: .33
XMIT FM 2M 6w: 2.01
XMIT SSB 2M 6w: 1.75
Idle SSB 40M: .37
XMIT SSB 40M 6w: 1.43
XMIT 6M FM 6w: 1.88
XMIT 6M SSB 6w: 1.89
IC-705
Powered off Charging nearly full: .15
Idle FM 2M Squelched charging: .43
Idle FM Squelched: .26
XMIT 2M FM 10W: 2.48
XMIT 2M SSB 10W: 1.31
XMIT 40m 10w: 1.05
XMIT 6M FM 10w: 1.88
XMIT 6M SSB 10w: .93