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 just dragging a big generator out there. the site we're using has no shore power and we'll probably be running for about 14 hours straight, maybe longer if the scenario drags on.

current plan is a 100ah lithium (battleborn) running an IC-7300 on mostly SSB, maybe some digital if the served agency wants that, plus a small fan and a laptop for logging. figured i could keep it reasonable on tx duty cycle since this isn't a contest, but realistically i have no idea how long that battery actually lasts under real conditions vs the math on paper.

the other guys want to just bring a honda eu2200i and be done with it. which honestly isnt the worst idea but i hate the noise and the fuel logistics, and last time someone ran a generator close to the operating position we had RFI all over 40m that nobody could figure out for like an hour.

also thinking about antenna - was going to run a linked dipole up maybe 25-30ft with a painters pole and some paracord guys. anyone done something similar for an all day field thing and had issues with it coming down or moving around in wind?

the battery math is always optimistic until you're actually in the field, just fair warning. a 7300 draws somewhere around 2A on receive and can spike to 20+ on tx at full power, so if you're running 100w and being realistic about a 20-25% duty cycle over a long operating period you can work the numbers but it gets close fast, especially once you add the laptop and any other accessories. i'd say with a 100ah lithium you're looking at maybe 8-10 hours comfortable before you're sweating it, not 14.

my suggestion - bring both. run off battery as primary and use the generator as a backup/charging source only. keep the genset at least 50-60ft away from the antenna feedpoint and run a longer extension, and use a good line filter on the genny output. the eu2200i is a pretty clean machine but yeah nothing is perfect especially if you have a ground loop situation going on. that RFI issue you described sounds like it was probably a grounding problem more than the generator itself but hard to say.

linked dipole on a painters pole works fine, just stake the base well and use at least 3 guy points if youre expecting any wind. i've had them hold up fine in 15-20mph gusts with proper guying but they do want to rotate and droop if you get lazy with the guys.

yeah the generator RFI thing is real, had the exact same problem at a RACES drill a couple years back and it turned out to be the inverter in the genset interacting with a bad ground on the radio setup. once we bonded everything together properly it cleaned up a lot but never went away completely on 40.

on the antenna question - painters pole dipoles are kind of my go-to for field stuff at this point. the thing that gets me every time is the feedpoint connector getting heavy and wanting to pull the center down. i started using a small bungee to take some of that tension off the coax where it connects and it made a big difference. also worth taping your coax connections if there's any chance of rain, learned that one the hard way during a wet SET exercise.