Rob,
This is an excellent question. First, let me congratulate you on your new Woodville acquisition. Is it going to be a retirement property? The generator you likely want is the Honda 2KW unit. There is an ad in QST every month offering it for a special price to hams. It is much more than a generator. It also includes an inverter that yields a sine wave output, similar to the output supplied by the local power company. This means it is perfect for your radio gear. Additionally, it is lightweight and quiet. You will get spoiled by these attributes, compared to other generators in the same class. Finally, there is little maintenance to perform to keep the unit in tip-top shape. You will likely get 12 or more hours of operation from one tank of gas. Having recommended the Honda, there may be reasons to get a different unit. For example, if you are looking to have a standby generator for an RV, portable building or small house, with appliances using 240 volts, the Honda will not do the job. I bought a Briggs and Stratton Storm Responder (5500 watts continuous/8500 watts surge) to provide standby power for my barn (B and S sells a heavy duty cable for this purpose, or you can get the parts from Lowes). This generator costs about the same as the Honda, but has a 240 volt output. It is heavy, but rolls around fairly well on hard ground. It always starts with one pull. I keep it full of gas at all times, and add Briggs and Stratton fuel preservative, available at Wal-Mart. There are enough power outages here to run it at least two times each year. I found 1 ounce per 2 gallons of gas keeps the gas fresh at least four years. That's how long I waited after hurricane Ike to drain the tank and refill with fresh gas. I then burned the gas in my lawn mower without a problem. You can find many generators that claim to compare with the above units, but for much less cash. I don't have any experience with these, but have heard from others that the cheap units do not last long, and usually have maintenance issues, something you really don't need when there is a power outage. 73, Keith NM5G From: BVARC [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of McClure, Rob K via BVARC Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2014 7:31 PM To: BVARC ([email protected]) Subject: [BVARC] Best buys in portable generators? Hello all, Closed on my ham friendly QTH in Woodville TX and starting on Oct. 24th will start stringing some nice wire antennas until I can get a tower up. I would like to back everything up with a portable generator which would also be nice to have for roving, and park work. Opinions: who has the best buys in portable generators? Yamaha prices are right up with Honda now, but now I see Generac, Ryobi and Hyundai all making less expensive but comparable output generators. Thanks in advance for your input. 73, Rob, KC5RET ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information of Cameron and its Operating Divisions. Any unauthorized use or disclosure is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and delete and destroy all copies of the original message inclusive of any attachments. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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