As someone else, powering all those things with a couple of deep cycle
batteries wont work well. With a big inverter they will probably be flat in
about 20 minutes powering up all those things. If you dont want to go with a
generater, then perhaps you should consider replacing the computers with a
laptop (and purchasing a car adaptor so it will run of 12V), for TV you can
get one of those mini-lcd tv's that run off AA batteries. Then just get
another car adaptor and run the tv off the deepcycle batteries. Doing it
this way will give you many hours out of those batteries before they get too
deeply discharged to be useful. I cant think of any easy way to power a
fridge without a generator though.

Also another safety tip to keep in mind is that make sure you put a fuse or
circuit breaker on these batteries. With two deep cycle bats in parallel a
short circuit will mean about 1000amps of current flow, and you can bet
whatever shorted out and is now trying to handle that is going to explode.
It wont be pretty.

"DX99" wrote in message
news:K_jne.10332$Vm4.8307@trnddc01...
Great info guys! Thanks very much. Have decided to trade my auto batteries
for some gel-cell marine batteries, a local guy here will give me 2 for 3,
not a bad deal. I also have a huge solar panel setup on my roof to heat my
pool, which I dont even use. I'm new to this, would you recommend
configuring the solar panels for backup? Would that be better? More
affordable? The gel batteries would be for individual radios - ie, the
BC780
and the 2006, 895, and 245. But I would also like to run backup (beyond
UPS
system) for my shortwaves (R-75, R71) and 2 Dell computers, a fridge and
TV.
Think I could convert enough energy for all of that from the solar pool
panels?