so we've got a county-wide ARES exercise coming up in about 5 weeks and i've been tasked with putting together the primary comms node at the EOC backup site which is basically a parking lot behind the old fire station. no shore power, no nothing. just whatever we bring.

my current thinking is to run my IC-7300 for HF and a separate VHF/UHF station (probably just my 2m/70cm mobile rig pulled off the truck) and i need to keep both running for potentially 12-14 hours. i've done portable ops before but never this long without being able to plug in somewhere.

the debate i'm having with myself is whether to drag out the honda eu2200i or just go heavy on LiFePO4 batteries. the generator is obviously more capability but it's also noise, fuel, and the exhaust situation is a little awkward in a parking lot depending on wind direction. last time i ran it at a public site somebody complained about the fumes even though i had it positioned reasonably well.

for the antenna side i'm thinking a trapped vertical for HF since we'll probably need 40 and maybe 80 for regional nets, and then a j-pole or small yagi up on a mast for the VHF work. site is pretty flat with some trees to the south which is slightly annoying for takeoff angle but probably not a dealbreaker for emcomm purposes.

anybody done long duration portable setups like this and have strong opinions either way on the power question? also curious if anyone has used the bioenno or power films batteries for something this demanding, i see them recommended a lot but havent actually seen one run a 100w HF rig for 8+ hours in practice

the generator vs battery thing really comes down to how much you want to babysit it honestly. i've run bioenno 30ah and 50ah cells and they're solid but you're going to go through them faster than you think if you're running 100w output any significant percentage of the time. a 100w rig on SSB with maybe 40% duty cycle is still pulling close to 15-18A average from a 13.8v source, so your math gets uncomfortable pretty quick over 12 hours even with a big pack.

my honest take for a planned exercise with a known site — just bring the honda and deal with the exhaust positioning. point it away from people, use a longer exhaust extension if you have one, and put a sign on it. the eu2200i is quiet enough that most people forget its even running after a few minutes. you can also use it to keep a battery float charged so if you need to shut the genny down for any reason you've got reserve.

on the antenna side the trapped vertical is fine for what you're doing but if you have time to put up an NVIS configuration on 40/80 you'll get better regional coverage depending on how far out your nets are. just something to think about if you have the wire and a second support.

yeah ive done a few of these for our section and the battery only approach always sounds better on paper than it works out in practice at that kind of duration. unless your operators are disciplined about running low power whenever conditions allow, the amp-hours just evaporate. people forget to drop power when they dont need it.

one thing worth doing regardless of which way you go — bring a dc watt meter and put it inline so whoever is sitting at the station can actually see what theyre pulling in real time. makes a huge difference in consumption awareness, seriously. we started doing that and our average draw dropped noticeably just because operators could see the number.

for the VHF antenna a jpole on a painters pole gets you up fast and its hard to argue with for a parking lot site, maybe 20-25 feet without much drama. small yagi makes sense if you have a specific direction you're shooting or if there are obstructions but for a general emcomm node omnidirectional is usually more useful.