so our ARES group has a county-level exercise coming up in about three weeks and im trying to figure out the best way to handle power for a longer deployment. we're looking at maybe 12-14 hours of continuous ops, not overnight but close to it, running two HF stations and one VHF/UHF packet node.

the HF rigs are both IC-7300s so they pull maybe 20-22A at full TX, realistically probably averaging out around 8-10A each if we're not transmitting constantly. the packet node is just a TM-V71 with a raspberry pi so that's pretty light. but still, doing the rough math that's a lot of amp-hours if we want margin.

we've been going back and forth on whether to bring a generator and run everything off that with some battery backup, or just bring a bunch of AGM batteries and call it a day. the site we're going to has no shore power and its a fairly exposed hilltop so RF noise from a genny is a real concern. last time we used a cheap honda knockoff and the HF noise floor was rough, like S4-5 on 40m which basically killed us.

anyone run extended field comms with a clean generator setup, or is LiFePO4 the answer here and i should just buy a couple 100Ah cells and stop worrying about it

the generator noise thing is real and it depends a lot on which genny and how you handle grounding and bonding. we had the same problem until someone in our group started bonding the genny frame to a ground rod at the site and running everything through a common ground bus. made a noticeable difference, maybe 1-2 S units on 40m. still not perfect but usable. the honda EU2200i is supposedly cleaner than the knockoffs due to the inverter design but ive never done a direct comparison on the air.

that said for 12-14 hours with the loads you're describing i'd honestly consider a hybrid approach — a modest generator to keep a bank of LiFePO4 topped off rather than running the rigs directly off it. keeps the switching noise out of the RF path and gives you battery backup if the genny has issues. we did something like this at a RACES activation last summer with a 2000W inverter genny and two 100Ah battleborn batteries and it worked pretty well, just kept the genny load light and let it float the batteries most of the time.

for antennas on that kind of hilltop deployment what are you planning to run. i ask because sometimes the antenna choice matters more than anything for a field exercise, like if youre going to be doing any NVIS work on 40 or 60 for regional comms a low dipole actually helps you and you dont need a big mast situation. just curious what the site looks like for supports.

on the power thing yeah LiFePO4 is kind of the answer for most field work if the budget is there. the weight per amp-hour is just so much better than AGM and you dont have to baby them. two 100Ah cells should cover your math pretty comfortably with margin assuming your duty cycle estimates are anywhere close.