charging 12 v gell cell? How? Can a standard 12 v charger work?

[KC9RCG]

I am wanting to do some field work and intend to buy a gel cell or two. Is there a special charger for such or can you use a car battery charger?

thanks

[K8AXW]

I just Googled, "charging gel cell batteries" and came up with this:

http://www.qsl.net/wb3gck/gel-cell.htm

And more to the point:

http://www.ehow.com/how_7732912_charge-gel-battery-regular-charger.html

Hope this helps.

[K1CJS]

The charger you want is going to depend on the size of the gel cell you buy.  The easiest, fastest way to kill a gel cell is to charge it at too fast of a rate for its size.

[KG4RUL]

Our ARES group has radios, sited at some of our county's Red Cross Shelter sites and, at our EOC, which are set up to be powered by 85AH AGM, backup batteries.  These batteries are maintained by Battery Tender Junior chargers: http://batterytender.com/battery-tender-junior-12v-at-0-75a.html  We also have replaced the supplied connectors with PowerPoles for compatibility with the ARES standard.