so we have a county ARES exercise coming up in about three weeks and im trying to figure out the best way to power everything without losing my mind. last time we ran a honda eu2200i and it was fine but kind of overkill for what we were actually running — an IC-7300, a couple laptops for winlink, and some misc 12v stuff for lighting. the whole thing probably drew maybe 300-400 watts sustained and that little honda was barely breaking a sweat.

this time around im thinking about just going deep cycle AGM and a decent solar panel since we're expecting good wx and the site has decent southern exposure. i've got a 100ah bioenno lifepo4 that i use for portable ops and honestly that thing has never let me down but im not sure it's enough for a full 8 hour shift especially if the laptop guys are drawing off it too.

antenna wise we're planning on a linked dipole up maybe 25-30 feet on a spiderbeam mast, probably 40/20/15 links. site is kind of in a valley so im a little worried about 40m being degraded but thats a different problem i guess. main question is really whether to bring the honda as backup or just trust the battery and solar. anyone run a serious comm station off a 100ah lifepo4 for a full day without a genny backup?

yeah ive done basically this setup twice now for RACES stuff. 100ah lifepo4 is plenty for an ic-7300 if you're not running it at full 100w output the whole time — like if you're doing mostly digital modes at 30-40w you're probably pulling 8-10 amps transmitting and maybe 2-3 at idle. do the math and you've got way more headroom than you'd think. the laptops are the wildcard honestly, depends if anyone has power bricks drawing 65+ watts each. i'd budget like 4-5 amps per laptop at the 12v rail through a cheap inverter or get one of those guys to bring a laptop with a usb-c pd charger so you can run it off a powerfilm or whatever directly.

if the wx is good and you've got even a 100w panel in decent sun youre probably net positive or at worst breaking even. i wouldnt bring the honda unless you're paranoid about clouds rolling in or the exercise goes long. maybe throw a second smaller AGM in the truck as backup without dragging the generator out — saves fuel hassle and its quieter which the site owners usually appreciate

the valley thing might be more of a problem than you think depending on terrain. ive worked from a similar spot and even with the dipole up decent height we were getting our 40m basically absorbed by the hillsides to the northwest. ended up having to switch to a nvis configuration which honestly worked fine for the county-to-county comms we needed but wasnt what we planned. might be worth pulling up a topo and seeing what youre actually dealing with before the exercise so you dont spend the first hour troubleshooting angles when you should be passing traffic.

on the power side i cant really add much to what the other guy said but i will say the honda is nice to have in the truck even if you dont run it. just knowing its there keeps the stress down when youre trying to focus on comms and not whether your batteries are gonna make it. ive started treating genny as insurance not primary and it changes how you plan the whole setup.