back to 2026.06.27 Summer Field Day Lookout Park

6 solar and power:




I hadn't anticipated much reliance on solar for this event, given the short time (~6 hours) and anticipated
surplus of batteries, so I only brought a "token" amount of solar (four panels). But we had 3, and possibly
a fourth station going online, one of which was digital, and the only battery present was my 100 AH LIFE and
Mark (N8TWO)'s ~30 AH LIFE. With nothing but light-to-medium overcast, the batteries were discharging
rapidly, so I made a quick run back home to grab ALL of my portable panels. That brought the count up
from 4 to 24, and was able to draw enough power through the clouds to get the batteries recharged. within
an hour. (the 20 extra panels were installed by about 1:30 pm)

But there was no way to angle them, so production dropped steadily as the sun moved down and to the West.
I was still seeing 100 watts a lot of the time though, which was able to keep all the stations running till we
packed up at 7pm.

By the end of the event, the string combiner read 775 WH, and at the other end by the controller it read
758 WH, which is a loss of only about 2% over the 100ft of #10 CCA, which was perfectly acceptable.

That's an average of 126 watts of solar throughout the six-hour event. And while that's only about 7% of the
potential output of the panels, it was a combination of overcast, poor panel angling, and less demand from
the batteries once they all got recharged.



AC power and generators


DC power grid


solar controller


solar panels


solar power (in power)



last updated 07/09/2026 at 12:55:18 by make_www_index.command version 2026.05.12.D