so ive been meaning to do this for literally two years and i finally sat down last weekend and started pulling stuff together for a proper go-kit. right now i have my FT-857D, a roll of coax, my buddipole, a little 35ah AGM battery, and a cheap harbor freight solar panel that i honestly dont totally trust yet. threw it all in a plastic tote from walmart for now.

the thing is i keep feeling like im forgetting something obvious. like i know i need to think about power management better and i probably need a charge controller for the solar situation. but beyond the RF gear itself what are people usually putting in these kits? im thinking first aid stuff is kind of a given but do most of you keep spare fuses, extra connectors, that kind of thing? my wife thinks im overthinking it but i mean thats kind of the point right, you want to think through the failure points before you actually need it

also curious how people handle the laptop vs tablet situation for digital modes in the field. i have fldigi and js8call set up on my old thinkpad but that thing weighs a ton and the battery is basically dead so it needs to be plugged in which defeats the purpose

the spare fuses thing is so real, i learned that the hard way during a ARES activation a few years back. had everything working great in the driveway and then a blown fuse on the power lead had me sitting useless for 45 minutes at an actual shelter. now i have a little ziplock bag taped inside the lid of my case with spare fuses in every size i use, a few anderson powerpole connectors already crimped, some electrical tape, a small multimeter, and a headlamp with extra batteries. sounds obvious but man you dont think about that stuff until you need it.

for the tablet question, a lot of guys around here have gone to a surface pro or one of those windows tablets that can actually run the software. or honestly a raspberry pi setup can work if youre patient enough to set it up right. the tablet thing is nice because you can run it off a USB power bank for a good while. your thinkpad situation is rough though, maybe worth grabbing a replacement battery before the next thing comes up, they're usually like 20 bucks on ebay for older models.

dont sleep on a simple notebook and pen in that kit lol. like actual paper. when everything goes sideways youll want somewhere to write down frequencies, net times, traffic, whatever. also a laminated copy of your local ARES/RACES frequencies and the ICS forms you might need. i know it sounds old fashioned but my EC drilled that into us and hes been doing this since before i was born so i figure he knows something