so im putting together a portable setup for a county ARES exercise this weekend and im trying to figure out the generator situation. we're supposed to be doing simulated emergency stuff, no grid power, and the IC-7300 plus a laptop plus the SignaLink is going to pull more than I want to run off my 100ah lithium for a full 8 hour activation.

currently thinking about bringing my Honda EU2200i but honestly its loud and i dont want to be running it constantly. was thinking maybe run it for 2-3 hour chunks to top off the battery and then run off the battery the rest of the time. the 7300 at 100 watts is pulling maybe 20-22 amps so do the math, that battery wont last forever especially if were doing any digital modes which seems to run it harder for some reason.

antenna wise I have a 40m EFHW that i usually sling up with a painter pole and some paracord, works pretty well but the last exercise we had weird noise issues that might have been from the genny being too close to the feedpoint. never fully figured that out. anyone run into that? and does the orientation of the generator relative to the antenna actually matter or was i just chasing ghosts

also open to hearing what other guys are running for field power setups, always trying to improve this thing

the noise issue is almost certainly the generator. i had the exact same problem with an eu2000 and an EFHW a few years back, took me way too long to figure it out. the inverter generators are way better than conventional ones for RFI but they still put out garbage on certain bands especially if your feedline runs anywhere near the genny or its power cables. try to get at least 50 feet separation if you can manage it, and run the feedline perpendicular to the generator rather than parallel.

also worth checking if you have a decent common mode choke at the feedpoint because that can make a huge difference. i wound mine on an FT240-43 toroid, maybe 10-12 turns, and the noise floor dropped noticeably. the EFHW is kind of notorious for picking up common mode junk anyway.

for your power math, 22 amps at 100w is about right, though if you back off to 50 watts you drop to like 10-12 amps and honestly for most emcomm work nobodys asking you to run 100w anyway. that would stretch your battery way further and your generator runtime would be more manageable. just a thought.

yeah the generator placement thing is real, i moved mine about 30 feet further away during a field day setup and it was night and day on 40m. also make sure the genny frame is grounded, i ran a short ground stake under mine and that helped too though i couldnt tell you exactly why it worked lol

one thing ive been messing with lately is a 30 amp hour lifepo4 as a buffer between the generator and the radio instead of running the radio direct off the genny. cleaner power and you can shut the genny off for a bit without any interruption. probably overkill for a one day exercise but its a nice setup