so im finally doing my first real field deployment this weekend, not just playing around in the backyard, actually setting up a proper portable station for a ARES exercise and i've been going back and forth on power for like two weeks now. my buddy says just bring a honda eu2200 and call it a day but i dont know, the noise floor on those inverter gens is supposedly pretty clean but ive heard mixed things depending on what rig you're running.

my setup is an IC-7300 and a fan dipole i built myself, feedline is about 50ft of LMR-400 which is probably overkill for a portable setup but i had it lying around. the dipole is cut for 40 and 20 which is where most of the exercise traffic will be. im planning to use a jackery 1000 as primary power and have the generator as backup if the battery gets low, does that make sense or am i overcomplicating this. also considering a buddipole but the fan dipole has served me pretty well in the backyard so maybe not worth the hassle of learning new antenna day-of.

any thoughts on the power chain specifically would be helpful, i know you all have done way more of these than i have

the jackery as primary then gen as backup is actually a pretty solid approach, thats kind of how i run it too. one thing i'd watch though is the 7300 pulls something like 23 amps peak on transmit so if youre doing any extended SSB ragchewing or net control duty that 1000wh jackery is gonna drain faster than you think. figure maybe 4-5 hours of mixed rx/tx before you're sweating it. not a dealbreaker just know your numbers before you're three hours in and wondering why the voltage is dropping.

on the generator noise thing, the eu2200 really is pretty clean, ive ran mine next to a 7610 and the noise floor barely moves. just run your dc line through a good common mode choke and keep the gen at least 20-30 feet from the antenna feedpoint if you can manage it. physically separating it does more than most people realize.

fan dipole is fine, don't swap antennas on exercise day. you already know how it works, stick with what you tested.

yeah the LMR-400 for 50 feet is not overkill its actually fine, the loss difference vs something lighter isnt huge at those lengths but the handling is kind of a pain when youre trying to set up fast. might want to think about that for your next build but for this weekend whatever.

the thing that always bites people on first field deployments isnt power or antennas its the little stuff, extension cords, tent stakes for the dipole ends, rope that tangles up, all that. i once showed up to a full field day with a beautiful station and forgot the coax connectors had never been weather sealed and it rained. that was a fun afternoon.