so we've got a county-wide ARES exercise coming up in about 5 weeks and i've been tasked with setting up the primary HF station at the EOC staging area which is basically a parking lot next to a community center. no shore power guaranteed, they said we might get a drop cord but might not, so im planning around having nothing.

my current thinking is to bring the IC-7300 and run it off a 100ah lithium battery with a 30a charger fed from a small Honda EU2200i if we need to top up. the antenna situation is what's really bugging me though. i was going to throw up a linked dipole on a 31ft fiberglass mast but honestly im second guessing whether i should just do an EFHW with a 9:1 unun and run it as a sloper off the mast instead, would be a lot faster to deploy.

also curious if anyone has thoughts on running the generator in a parking lot situation - noise complaints from neighbors at these events are a real thing and the eu2200 is pretty quiet but still. we'll probably be on 40 and 80 for most of the nets, maybe 20 for some of the regional traffic.

the EFHW sloper is going to save you so much time in the field, go that route. ive done both at exercises and the linked dipole is great but when you're trying to get on the air in 20 minutes with people watching you it becomes a whole thing. the sloper off a 31ft mast with a good 49:1 or 64:1 unun and decent counterpoise wire is perfectly workable for 40 and 80. just make sure your counterpoise is laid out reasonably, not coiled up under the feedpoint.

on the generator question, the EU2200i is honestly the best call for that kind of event. i ran one at a similar exercise last year and nobody complained. we had it on the downwind side of the trailer and stuffed an anti-vibration mat under it which helped a lot. one thing i'd add - bring a short piece of garden hose to route the exhaust sideways if you're near any kind of enclosure, those machines can pump out CO faster than people think in a semi-enclosed space like a canopy tent setup.

100ah lithium should run that 7300 for a good while at reasonable power levels, maybe 5-6 hours depending on duty cycle if you're not pegging the TX constantly. just watch your low voltage cutoff settings on the BMS, some of the cheaper lithium packs will shut off hard at 20% with no warning and it always seems to happen mid-transmission lol.

i'd actually bring both the generator and the battery and just use the genny to float the battery rather than power the radio directly - cleaner power that way and the honda sine wave is decent but i still feel better running radio gear off battery. might just be me being paranoid.