Emergency power generators

[Mike <mike-nanog () tiedyenetworks com>]

Hi Folks,

Northern California is getting pounded hard by storms, as we do most 
every year, and have quite a few electric outages as a result. Of 
particular note however is that we have experienced a number of remote 
and inaccessible microwave backhaul sites where the on-site generator 
has failed to engage, leaving us with 9 hours of battery. Sometimes, 
fortunately, that's enough to carry us through. Other times, like now, 
it's not. I don't want to lecture the site owners about routine testing 
procedures and so forth, but it seems that we need to become experts on 
the topic and we would like to offer these site owners a solution to 
test and verify generator operation. Does anyone have any pointers to 
possible solutions or vendor white papers I could look at? We probably 
want to verify start, read voltage to verify output, and maybe even 
gauge fuel in the tanks if thats possible.

No sales droids please, just helpful information based on experience at 
this time.

Thank you.