so ive been meaning to do this for a while and finally sitting down to think about it seriously. our local ARES group has been pushing everyone to have a go-kit ready and honestly i feel kind of embarrassed that i dont have one yet, been licensed for almost 3 years now.

my problem is i dont even know where to start. like do i build around a specific radio or just throw everything in a bag and hope for the best? i have a Yaesu FT-857D that i use at home and a couple of HTs, one of them is a Baofeng which i know some people have opinions about but it works fine for local stuff. i also have a little 20ah lithium battery pack i picked up last year.

what does your go-kit actually look like in real life, not the ideal version, the one you actually grab when something comes up. and how often do you test it or like... rotate the batteries and stuff. that part seems like it could get away from you pretty fast

honest answer -- mine went through like four versions before it settled into something i actually use. first version was way too heavy, had the 857 plus a power supply plus way too much coax and connectors, took me 20 minutes just to find things in the bag. now its much leaner.

what i settled on is the FT-891 in a small pelican-style case with a 30ah lithium iron phosphate battery, a few lengths of RG-8X with PL-259 on both ends, a simple end-fed wire antenna rolled up in a ziplock, and a notebook plus pens because you'd be surprised how often the digital stuff fails or gets complicated and paper just works. i keep a printed copy of local repeater frequencies and ARES net info taped inside the lid.

the battery rotation thing is real, i set a calendar reminder every 6 months to actually run the kit through its paces, charge everything up, make sure the SWR is still reasonable on the antenna. its easy to forget and then you pull it out during an actual activation and the battery is half dead. learned that one the not fun way during a flooding event a couple years back, showed up with maybe 40% charge and had to beg a neighbor ham for a jump start basically.

dont overthink the radio choice though. the 857 is fine if thats what you have. the key is knowing it cold so you can operate it half asleep at 2am under stress.

im kind of in the same boat as you, just started putting mine together a few months ago. one thing someone told me at a club meeting that stuck with me is dont buy anything new just for the go-kit at first, just pull from what you already have and see if it actually works as a kit. figure out the gaps from there.

i ended up with my HT, a small antenna adapter so i can run it off a mag mount on the car, some spare AA batteries in a ziploc, and a charger that works off 12v. nothing fancy but i could actually set it up and check into the local net within like 5 minutes if i needed to. thats the bar i set for myself. also threw in a cheap headlamp and some snacks because someone joked about it at a meeting but honestly its not a bad idea