so im putting together a portable setup for a ARES activation exercise this weekend and ive been going back and forth on the power situation. we're deploying to a community center parking lot, probably 6-8 hours of operation, and i want to run an IC-7300 plus a laptop for logging and maybe a second VHF radio.

i have a Honda EU2200i that ive used before and it runs great, quiet enough that you can actually hold a conversation next to it. but my buddy is saying i should just run off batteries and a solar panel to keep things simple. the thing is i dont think a 100w panel is going to keep up with the draw if we're transmitting a lot on HF, especially if we push 100w output. i ran the numbers and figure somewhere around 20-22 amps on transmit peaks which is a lot to ask from solar alone unless we have a big battery bank.

antenna wise im planning on an EFHW for 40/20 with a 9:1 unun and about 65 feet of wire. throw it up in a tree with a fishing line launcher. done this a bunch of times and it works fine. but i keep second-guessing whether i should just bring the Buddipole because its faster to set up even if the EFHW probably outperforms it on lower bands.

anyone run this kind of mixed power setup before? trying to figure out if the genny is overkill or if im going to regret not having it

for a 6-8 hour activation with that kind of load i'd absolutely bring the generator. the math just doesn't work out with solar unless you have something like 200+ watts of panel and a 100ah battery minimum, and even then you're cutting it close if there's any cloud cover. a 20-22 amp transmit draw adds up fast and your battery will sag before you know it, then voltage starts dropping and the radio starts doing weird things.

the EU2200i is about as good as it gets for this kind of thing. runs clean power, the inverter type is fine for radios, and it's quiet enough that people wont be yelling at you all day. i'd run the genny as primary and keep a 50ah LiFePO4 as a buffer/backup. that way if you kill the genny for a lunch break or whatever the battery carries you for a while and also smooths out any load spikes.

on the antenna question, EFHW is almost always the right call if you have trees and a few extra minutes. the Buddipole is convenient but you'll be fiddling with it constantly trying to get the SWR down and explaining to bystanders what you're doing. throw the wire up and forget about it.

yeah the generator is not overkill, bring it. i made the mistake once of thinking solar would be enough for a similar exercise and by early afternoon we were brownout-ing the rig and had to back down to like 50w which isnt the end of the world but its annoying when everyone else is running full power.

one thing i'll throw out there — if you haven't already, get a good inline power meter like a Powerwerx or even just a cheap watt meter from Amazon so you can actually watch your consumption in real time. really changes how you manage things in the field, you start noticing stuff like the laptop charger pulling way more than you expected or the radio drawing current even on receive if you have the display cranked up bright.

EFHW vs Buddipole is honestly a personal thing but for 40m i'd go wire every time. Buddipole on 40 is kind of meh unless you do the extended version and that thing is a lot of pieces to keep track of.