so we have a county ARES exercise coming up and im trying to nail down our power situation before i show up with a pile of gear and no plan. last time we ran a portable setup i brought my honda eu2200i and it worked fine but we were also just running a single IC-7300 and a laptop, nothing crazy. this time theres talk of running two HF stations plus a VHF/UHF gateway and maybe a packet node and i honestly dont know if thats still within the 2200 watt range or if im going to be constantly watching the load.

also dealing with the antenna situation - the site is a county fairgrounds with basically no trees anywhere near the operating area, so no NVIS dipoles thrown over branches this time. was thinking about bringing the 40ft spiderpole and running an inverted-V for 40m/80m but the ground is packed gravel and getting stakes in is going to be a whole thing. anyone done antenna deployment on hard ground like that? i have a few sandbag weights but never really tested them with any wind load.

third issue and this is probably the dumbest one - we also need to think about fuel. last exercise someone forgot to top off the generator before we hit the 4 hour mark and we had a very awkward 20 minute break while someone drove to a gas station. trying to get ahead of that this time but im not sure how much the eu2200i burns at like 50-60% load. anyone know offhand?

the eu2200i at 50-60% load is going to burn somewhere around 0.6 gallons per hour give or take, maybe a little less if you're lucky with your actual draw. honda's rated eco-throttle numbers are optimistic but not crazy. for a 4-5 hour exercise you're probably looking at 3 gallons to be safe, more if anyone's running a linear or you've got a lot of stuff on 12v converters sucking background current.

for the antenna stakes on hard gravel - i've done this a few times and what works for me is those screw-in dog tie-out stakes, the spiral ones. you can usually get them into packed gravel if you work them slowly, and they hold surprisingly well. wont work on actual pavement obviously but gravel you should be fine. another option is sandbags with a daisy chain of paracord to your guy wires, which is slower to set up but bombproof. i've also seen guys bring a section of rebar and a small sledge but that starts to feel like a lot of weight to haul.

on the power question - two HF rigs plus a gateway plus packet, yeah i'd be watching that eu2200i. not saying it cant do it but if one of those HF stations is running 100w and actually transmitting a lot you'll want to know what your simultaneous draw looks like. a kill-a-watt on each load at home before the exercise is worth the 20 minutes.

fuel thing is real, we had the exact same problem at a drill last spring. now we keep a 2.5 gallon NATO-style can in the trailer as a reserve and it's just policy that whoever breaks it down at the end refills it before the trailer gets locked up. simple but it took us like three exercises to figure that out lol

the spiderpole on gravel i cant really speak to directly but i know some guys use a tripod base, like a camera tripod with an adapter, and then just pile sandbags on the legs. seems to work for light wind. you're probably okay unless you get actual gusts.