so ive been putting together a go-kit for some local ARES stuff and i keep going back and forth on the power situation. right now i have a 100ah lifepo4 battery that runs my ic-7300 pretty comfortably at home but im worried about a multi-day deployment where i cant guarantee any solar input. the events coordinater wants us ready for 72 hours sustained ops which is a whole different beast than just a few hours at a park.

the antenna side im pretty sorted - got a Wolf River Coils silver bullet 1000 on a tripod and a 40m NVIS wire i can throw up pretty quick, both have done fine. its really the power chain im second guessing. a generator seems like the obvious answer but theyre loud and need fuel logistics and in a real deployment youre probably in a shelter or community center where running a honda eu2200 inside a parking garage or whatever is gonna be a problem.

has anyone done a proper 72hr deployment with just batteries plus solar as backup? or is the generator just kind of unavoidable if you want to run a 100w hf rig continuously? i could always run reduced power but id rather not plan around that if i dont have to

yeah the 72hr thing is where battery-only starts getting painful fast. 100ah lifepo4 is great but if youre pulling 20-22a on transmit even at 50% duty cycle you're going to burn through that faster than you think especially once you factor in the radio on receive, any accessories, maybe a laptop or tablet for logging. i did a 48hr exercise last spring with two 100ah battleborns wired in parallel and we were sweating by hour 36.

what we ended up doing for longer stuff is a small generator running just a few hours a day to top everything back up - you dont need it running continuously. the EU2200 in parallel mode with another one is overkill for just hf, even a cheaper 1000-1200w inverter gen will charge a battery bank no problem and those are a lot quieter and lighter than people expect. fuel for 2-3 hours a day over 72hrs is like 3-4 gallons, pretty manageable. and yeah most shelter coordinators will let you run it outside or in a designated spot if you talk to them in advance, you just gotta communicate it ahead of time instead of showing up with a generator and surprising everyone.

the NVIS wire for 40m is the right call for regional comms btw, good choice there

honestly for 72 hours straight i wouldnt even try to do it without some kind of charging source. solar is fine if the weather cooperates but you kinda already said that's not guaranteed so there's your answer right there. generator is just the reliable option, noise and logistics and all.

one thing though - have you looked at the Bioenno or Dakota Lithium packs that have the higher continuous discharge rating? some of the cheaper lifepo4 cells will throttle or cutoff if you push them hard for too long, worth double checking the BMS specs on yours before you commit to a deployment. found that out the hard way with an older battery i had, thing would just drop off at like 30% indicated charge under load.