Look what came today...

[mdiack77]

From my research, that's what I thought, Mike. I was doubting my memory though, I don't have any hands on experience with them, and to be honest, I can't picture how an automatic transfer switch works. It appears that mdiack77 would know more than me, I've never been close to a set up like yours in person, I've only seen pictures and read descriptions, etc. He does the installs.
Once I hold a transfer switch in my hands and get a good look at it, I expect I can figure out what it does.

It's actually simple. A coil senses utility power which keeps a spring loaded magnetic contactor closed. When utility fails, the coil senses power loss and tells the standby unit to startup. The battery within the generator provides the 12v power to the transfer switch. Pops the contactor to standby once it senses voltage from the generator. The reverse happens once utility is restored.

Simple! LOL. Remember to change oil every 100 hours of use. That's 4 days when LIPA fails us , yet again!!