That meshes with similar results I've gotten in the past. One of the reasons I switched to rechargables, though, is I've had especially poor luck with alkalines. A D-cell 4-pack I picked up only gave me about 2 hours before they croaked. WTF! Just a fluke on the bad set, really, but also didn't feel like continuing to throw batts away. At any rate, if you need to power that sucker for a looooooooong time, that's one way to do it.