so we've got a county-wide exercise coming up in about 6 weeks and im trying to nail down the power situation before we start hauling stuff out to the park. last year we just ran everything off a big marine battery and it was fine for a few hours but the event coordinator wants us to be able to sustain 12+ hours this time which is a whole different animal.

right now im looking at either bringing my honda eu2200i or just stacking a couple of 100ah lithium batteries with a decent solar panel if the weather cooperates. the genny is obviously more reliable but man it gets annoying after hour 3, the noise, the fuel runs, having to keep it away from the tent far enough to not CO everyone. the lithium setup is cleaner but im not confident enough in the solar to count on it as anything more than a top-off.

also on the antenna side — were planning to run HF on 40 and maybe 80 at night, plus VHF/UHF for the nets. im thinking a linked dipole hung between two spiderpoles but the field we're using is pretty flat and open so i might be able to do a ground-mounted vertical instead which would be way easier to set up and tear down. anybody run the comet cHA-250 or something similar for this kind of mixed-mode field work? curious how it actually performs vs a resonant dipole when youre trying to hit a section net 200 miles out.

for a 12 hour sustained op honestly id just run both — use the lithiums as your primary and keep the honda staged and ready but dont fire it up unless you need to. that way you get the quiet clean power most of the day and the genny is there if clouds roll in or you just drain faster than expected. i did basically this setup at a 2-day public service event last summer and the generator only ran maybe 90 minutes total. the trick is knowing your actual current draw ahead of time — run everything at home on the shack meter for a few hours and get realistic numbers, not the nameplate ratings.

on the antenna question though i would not rely on a compromise vertical like the CHA-250 for a section net 200 miles out on 40m, especially if the net is voice. you'll get into it but the signal reports will be mediocre compared to even a mediocre dipole at 25-30 feet. the spiderpole linked dipole is more work to set up but it's the right call for reliable comms. if setup speed is the issue practice it a few times before the exercise, you can get a two-element linked dipole up in under 10 minutes once you know what youre doing.

yeah the noise thing with generators at a public event is real, people always end up parking it in the worst spot and then someone complains. the eu2200i is at least tolerable but still. one thing we've started doing is using a small DC-DC converter setup so the radio gear is completely isolated from whatever noise the genny puts out on the line — had some RFI issues early on that turned out to be coming right through the power leads, not even radiated.

cant really comment on the CHA-250 specifically never used one but my general take on loaded verticals for HF field work is they're fine for casual operation but when it actually matters i want a resonant antenna. for ARES stuff where you might need to punch through on a bad band day i'd take the dipole hassle every time.