so ive been meaning to do this for like two years now and after the last storm knocked out power for four days in my area i figured i really need to stop procrastinating on this. i joined the local ARES group about six months ago and they keep talking about go-kits but honestly the meetings move fast and i dont always follow everything they say.

right now i have an IC-7300 as my main rig but obviously thats not going in a kit, so i picked up a used FT-891 which seems like a solid portable HF option. for VHF/UHF i was just going to throw in my Baofeng but im wondering if i should step up to something like a TM-V71A or maybe a used D72. also got a 40Ah LiFePO4 battery from bioenno which i love, and a cheap PWRgate type thing to handle charging and switching.

what i feel shaky on is the antenna situation. i have a random wire and an EFHW but im not sure which is more practical when youre actually deploying somewhere fast and dont know what kind of space you have. and also like... what else do people throw in their kits that they were glad they had? the non-radio stuff i mean. im sure im missing something obvious.

the antenna question is a real one and honestly both have their place but if i had to pick one for a general purpose go-kit id lean toward the EFHW just because it only needs one feedpoint and you can get it up in a lot of weird spaces with some paracord and a tree or a fence post. the random wire is great but then you need a tuner and a decent ground which gets complicated fast when youre stressed and trying to set up in a parking lot at 2am.

for the non-radio stuff — waterproof notebook and a couple sharpies, this sounds dumb but trust me when the tablet dies youll be glad you have paper logs. also a headlamp with extra batteries, not just because power might be out but because you might be operating in a vehicle or a tent and overhead light is useless. some kind of surge protected power strip even if youre on battery, i fried a radio years ago from generator voltage spikes and i learned that lesson the hard way. extra coax with connectors already on it, like several short jumpers, because youll always need one more than you think. and honestly a laminated copy of your important frequencies and ARES nets because under pressure people forget things they know cold.

sounds like youre on the right track with the 891, thats a solid kit radio. lot of people in our group run them.

dont sleep on having some kind of portable mast situation. i used to just throw my antenna up in whatever tree was nearby but there have been deployments where there just wasnt a good tree, like a school parking lot or a community center with a big flat lot around it. i ended up getting one of those telescoping fiberglass masts, nothing fancy, and it changed things a lot. fits in the kit fine.

also the Baofeng is fine for a backup but yeah if the V71A fits in your budget its worth it especially if your local ARES net uses any tones or does any kind of linked repeater stuff, the Baofeng memory management is kind of a nightmare to deal with in the field. just my two cents anyway.