so we have a fairly big ARES exercise coming up next month and im trying to nail down my portable setup for the first time as the actual station lead, not just a helper. running an IC-7300 as the primary HF rig and a couple of VX-6Rs for local VHF/UHF. the antenna situation is where im going back and forth.

for the field site we've been assigned, it's a parking lot behind a community center, so no trees to hang a wire from really. i was thinking a 20m hamstick on a mag mount on the roof of my truck, or maybe bringing my Buddipole and setting that up on its tripod. the buddipole would obviously be better for flexibility but its also more to set up under time pressure and those exercises always have some kind of timed deployment component.

the bigger question is power. i have a 100ah lithium battery (battleborn) that should in theory run the 7300 for a good while at moderate power, but the exercise is supposed to run 8 hours and i dont want to be that guy who goes QRT because his battery died at hour 5. was thinking about bringing along a small honda generator as backup, like the EU2200i, but then i have to deal with noise, fuel, the whole thing. anyone run a setup like this and have an opinion on whether the battery alone is realistic or whether the generator is basically mandatory for a full day operation?

done similar exercises a few times with our group and honestly the generator question really depends on what duty cycle you're actually running. if it's a real emcomm exercise with nets, check-ins, traffic passing, you're probably not keying up more than maybe 20-30% of the time realistically. at 100w that 7300 pulls maybe 22-23 amps transmitting but only like 2-3 amps on receive. so rough math on 8 hours with moderate traffic you're probably looking at somewhere between 40-60ah actual draw, which your battleborn should handle no problem with room to spare.

that said i always bring the generator anyway. not because i need it necessarily but because murphy's law at exercises is very real and also sometimes the AO changes and suddenly you're running more gear or someone else needs to tap your power. the EU2200i is a good choice, quiet enough that it doesnt drive everyone insane. just keep it downwind and a decent distance from the antenna feed point if you can, i had RFI issues once running a cheaper generator too close to everything.

for the antenna id go buddipole over the hamstick on the truck honestly. mag mount hamstick on a car roof is kind of a compromised ground plane situation and the buddipole on the tripod at least gives you some height and a tunable dipole configuration. yeah it takes a few more minutes but once you've set it up a handful of times it goes pretty fast.

the battleborn is fine for 8 hours if you're not running 100w the whole time, i run a similar setup with a 100ah lifepo4 and an 857D on field day type stuff. one thing i'd add is bring a decent clamp meter so you can actually watch your current draw in real time and not just guess. makes a huge difference in knowing when to throttle back the power or switch to the generator before you're in trouble.

also on the antenna front — have you looked at a vertical like a Wolf River Coils setup on a drive-on mount? parking lot deployment, no trees, that would actually be pretty slick and quick to get on the air. i've seen guys set that up in under 10 minutes. just a thought.