So we're gearing up for field day again and same story every year - my friend keeps wanting to bring his massive 15kw generator that sounds like a freight train. Thing weighs like 300lbs and you need a trailer just to move it around. I keep trying to tell him we could do just fine with some smaller setups maybe some battery packs or those little 2kw inverter jobs but he says "you gotta have the power for the amps" and all that.

Thing is we ran class 2a last year with just 100w rigs and did pretty decent. Made like 800 contacts over the weekend. But every year its the same argument about needing the "big iron" even though half our operators are running QRP anyway. I mean i get it if youre doing a serious contest operation but field day is supposed to be about emergency preparedness right?

Anyone else deal with this kinda thing in their club? How do you convince the old timers that you dont need to haul a small power plant to every outdoor event?

oh man i feel your pain on this one... we had a guy in our club who insisted on bringing this ancient onan that leaked oil everywhere and made more noise than a harley convention. Finally the site coordinator at the park told us we couldnt use generators after 10pm because of complaints from campers nearby.

That was actually a blessing in disguise because it forced us to get creative with battery setups and solar panels. Now we run everything off lifepo4 packs during the day and charge them with solar when the sun's out. Way more peaceful and honestly more fun without that constant noise in the background. Plus you can actually hear those weak signals without competing with engine noise.

i dont know, seems like having backup power is pretty important for emergency comms. what happens if your batteries die and its cloudy for the solar panels? at least with a generator you know youve got power as long as you have gas

maybe compromise and get like a honda 2200 or something quiet? still plenty of power for 100w rigs but way less noise than those big construction generators