so we have a county ARES exercise coming up saturday and im trying to figure out the best way to run the station for about 8 hours without shore power. we'll be at a park, probably 50-60 feet from the parking lot so running a cord isnt totally out of the question but id rather not deal with the noise.

right now my plan is the IC-7300 running at 50 watts off a 100ah lithium battery with a 40w solar panel as a trickle charge since we'll have decent sun. done the math and it should be fine for the radio itself, but we're also running a laptop, a small fan (its gonna be hot), and maybe a second HT on a charger. starting to wonder if the battery alone cuts it or if i should just bite the bullet and bring the Honda eu2200i anyway.

antenna side im thinking linked dipole up in an inverted V off a 31 foot jackite pole, have been pretty happy with that setup at past events but curious if anyone has had luck with a trapped vertical for this kind of thing — easier to set up solo and i might be running this mostly alone until the other guys show up.

anyway the generator question is really what i cant figure out. the eu2200i is quiet enough that it doesnt bother me but in a public park setting i always feel weird about it. last exercise someone complained about the fumes near the shelter we were using. anyone dealt with this?

the fumes thing is real, we had the same issue at a Red Cross shelter drill a couple years back. ended up having to move the genny like 30 feet downwind and run a longer extension cord. kind of a pain but it worked. honestly for an 8 hour op if your lithium is a decent one and youre not running the amp, the math usually works out better than you think — the laptop and fan are probably your bigger draws than the radio at 50w.

on the antenna question, ive used a trapped vertical (specifically a Chameleon MPAS Lite on a tripod) at several exercises and its genuinely faster to set up solo. the inverted V will probably outperform it if the bands cooperate but if you're dealing with trees or tight spaces the vertical just gets done quicker and you can actually focus on the actual comms work instead of messing with a feedline for 20 minutes. depends what 40m is doing that day i guess.

just run the honda and put it far enough away, honestly the linked dipole vs trapped vertical thing people overthink. ive used both in field conditions and the difference on 40m for local nets is pretty marginal, you're not trying to work DX here. get the antenna up fast and get the radio on, thats what matters at an exercise.

one thing though — if youre connecting solar to the battery while the radio is also drawing from it, make sure your charge controller isnt adding any noise to the rx. had a cheap PWM controller that was absolutely terrible on 40 and 80. MPPT was fine. probably not an issue if you already know this but figured id mention it.