Welcome to the first episode of shacktime.   We have recieved a lot of interest in how to get started in ham radio.  So I thought, why not talk about a different piece of gear every so often and help people get started.   There is some gear that you should borrow form other people (or just have them come over and help) and there is some gear that you should buy.  Power supplies are really one of the items that you should own on your own.

When you first get started in ham radio, you really aren't going to be pushing the legal power limit on any bands.  I think it's safe to start with the assumption that you will be running a 100W station (or 50/35W on VHF/UHF respectively).       You also have to think about electrical safety as well.   Always make sure your antenna is away from power lines and properly grounded to your house/station.    And it is always a good idea to unplug and disconnect everything when they are not in use.     It seems like every year i hear about people losing radio equipment and computers to lightening.   Remember, lightning an sneak up your phone/cable lines and through your ethernet switches.   So make sure to disconnect those too.

We talk about automobiles and radios being 12V power.  However the automobile's electrical system actually runs at 13.8V when the engine and alternator are running.    Most power supplies will put out power at this Voltage.      But are you sure that you only want power for a radio?  

This is one of the many power supplies I own.   

• It's compact and light weight. 
  
• Suppresses noise that typically gets into radios from power supplies
• It has a nice 12v port so you can charge any mobile radio accessories without having to buy other adapters. 
• You have some nice big power posts in the back.   However you get an extra set of stuff for accessories right in the front.  (Remember it's still 13.8 volts or whatever you have the power supply dialed into)

QEX is a bimonthly publication of advanced radio knowledge.  (Quite honestly a lot of it is over my head).   
http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/Launch.aspx?PBID=1025e13a-735b-4a99-8b09-149c006f5765  You would need to login with your ARRL credentials.  I know the link is different, but it is legit.    Just in case you are still skeptical, you can get there from this page as well.  http://www.arrl.org/arrl-magazines

However,  they have launched some university level Electrical Engineering essays to help increase knowledge for anyone interested.    QEX will now be available as part of your ARRL subscription.

Essay 1:  Introduction to QEX:  The ARRL experimenters' Exchange 
Essay 2:  Setting up your home electrical engineering lab
Essay 3:  EE math the easy way
Essay 4:  Ohm's Law - Do you REALLY believe it?
Essay 5:  Simultaneous Equations
Essay 6:  Kirchoff's Voltage Law (KVL)
Essay 7:  Kirchoff's Current Law (KCL)
Essay 8:  The Maximum Power Transfer Theorem
Essay 9:  Energy Storage and Recovery
Essay 10:  Mechanics of Waves
Essay 11:  Filters
Essay 12:  Impendence Matching  (Is that like a fashion thing?  Does this toroid go with my feed line?  I wanted to go with red, but they only had black left)
Essay 13:  Introduction to Active Devices
Essay 14:  Free Electrons and Plasmas
Essay 15:  Introduction to Digital Techniques
Essay 16:  Contrasting Combinational Logic and Sequential Logic
Essay 17:  Digital Signal Processing
Summary and Wrap - Up

This will be produced by Eric P. Nichols, KL7AJ, a two-time recipient of the William Orr, W6SAI Technical Writing Award.  He has written numerous articles for QST and QEX magazine as well as four ARRL books, the latest being "Receiving Antennas for the Radio Amateur."  Eric's latest focus is on encouraging experimentation on our two new LF bands on 2200 meters and 30 meters, heroically attempting to make up for lost time in catching up with our LF brethren across the pond.