Technical Support wrote:
Having played with it to learn, and then having used them for a half day (particularly if the screen was on a lot), i would not be concerned over one set of dead batteries, as the screen on is taxing on the batteries. If, however, the batteries die without the screen being on, then there is a reason to be concerned."
Ok I can buy that, however after Friday's shoot (a lite one) Saturday morning the batteries are dead again,  granted I can just get some recyclable batteries and not worry about always replacing batteries after every shoot although that seems like either I'm doing something wrong (the unit doing extra features I don't need it to be doing) or I need to test the unit to get this squared away.  Any advice or suggestions will be appreciated.  thanks jeff
p.s.  after thinking about it, the unit was only used for one view on friday - the first portion of the day was using pocket wizards until I was able to take a break and get some replacement batteries for one afternoon view - so in that retrospective I am doubting that this can be seen as normal battery performance (the replacement batteries were Energizer AAAs bought fresh from the store)