so our ARES group has a county-wide exercise coming up and im the one who got volunteered to handle the comms station setup this year. last time we just ran off a deep cycle battery and it died about 4 hours in which was embarassing. we were running an IC-7300 plus a couple HTs on charge and a laptop, so yeah that adds up fast.

anyway im trying to figure out whether to just get a proper inverter generator this time or go with a bigger battery bank. a guy in our group has a honda eu2200i he said we can borrow and that would obviously solve the runtime problem but then you've got noise, fuel, the whole thing. i've been looking at some of the larger lifepo4 options, something in the 100ah range, and wondering if that's enough headroom for a full 8 hour deployment.

also on the antenna side we've been using a homebrew NVIS dipole cut for 40m which works okay locally but the county wanted us to demonstrate some 80m capability this time too. thinking about just making it a fan dipole or maybe an OCF. anybody run an OCF portable, like actually portable not just in a fixed location? curious how the feedline situation works when you're in a field.

been doing ARES deployments for probably 12 years now and honestly the generator vs battery thing really depends on how long your exercise runs and what your exact load is. for an 8 hour op with an IC-7300 you're looking at maybe 20-25 amp hours if you're transmitting a reasonable amount, more if you're pounding the mic all day. so a 100ah lifepo4 at the recommended 80% discharge gives you maybe 80 usable amp hours, which should be fine with some margin but you're not going to have a lot left over for charging radios and running a laptop continuously.

if you can borrow the eu2200i just take it. yeah it makes noise but you can run it 50 feet away on an extension cord and it'll run all day on a gallon of fuel. only thing i'd say is bring a good line filter or a power conditioner because sometimes those small inverter gens put out some hash. i've seen them cause RFI issues on 40m specifically. test it at home first if you can.

for the OCF portable — yeah i've done it. i use a 4:1 balun at the feedpoint and just run RG-8X down to the radio. not ideal but it works. the main hassle is finding a good center support in a field situation, you kinda need at least one tall tree or a mast at the feedpoint. some guys just slop it up asymmetrically between whatever supports they have and tune it with the tuner, which works but SWR can be ugly on some bands.

the fan dipole is probably less headache than an OCF for field work honestly, especially if you already have wire and you're comfortable with the NVIS setup. just add the 80m elements and you're done, no balun weirdness to deal with. i made mine with a simple 3-way wire connector from the hardware store at the feedpoint and it's worked fine.

one thing to think about with the generator — if this is any kind of public safety adjacent exercise, some counties have rules about running a generator indoors or even in certain outdoor areas, just worth checking before you show up with it and get told no.