I was chatting with two guys in the office about the results from my previous tests with the TH-D72. In the previous tests, the radio was configured to receive all APRS packets.  Now, considering EI4HQ’s scenario, which was to have it with him while walking.  He isn’t going to be very worried about the location of other APRS stations while out walking in the hills.  Also,if another APRS station is within simplex range, Voice Alert will let him know.

So, I just configured the Battery Saver on the TH-D72 to be more aggressive.  Set for 1 second, this means that when the squelch is closed, and no key is pressed for more than 10 seconds, the radio switches the radio off for 1 second, then momentarily turns is back on in order to detect if any signal is present. As an aside, it is suggested in the manual that the battery saver be set to 0.03 seconds in order for APRS to work reliably. This is what it was set to in the previous tests.

Anyway, at 1 second the first packet was logged at 08:44 in the morning and the last at 23:00 that evening.  Giving approximately 14h 15 minutes of runtime.  Setting the battery saver to 2 seconds, with the first packet at 08:35 and second at 00:02 increases that to approximately 15h 25 minutes.

In other words, a 5 to 6.5 hour increase in battery life. That, i think you would agree, is a very useful increase in battery life.