Okay guys. During my duties in the Coast Guard, I was attached to a marine safety office in the San Francisco Bay area. We had portable radios that worked on Nicd batteries. These radios were operated basically 8-5 every day, M-F. When I got there, it seemed like every time we responded to a pollution incident our radios would fail after about 7 to 8 hours of use. And believe me, EVERYBODY wanted to have a portable radio and we had to supply them to the cleanup contractors so they could talk to us. The radio batteries should supply power for approximately 12 to 15 hours of use. After talking with representitives from the radio manufacturer and the Coast Guard electronics repair people, we determined that the radio batteries had developed a memory that said they only needed to supply power for 7 to 8 hours.

Needless to say, I had to convince my command that we needed to purchase new batteries for the radios and a special charger that would automatically cycle the batteries every time they were plugged in. After I implemented this procedure at my command, we were routinely getting 15 - 20 hours of battery life from our Nicds.

Just food for thought from past experience with Nicd batteries.

My suggestion based on past experience with Nicd batteries, I would COMPLETELY discharge the battery before recharging EVERY time.

Larry