so ive been meaning to do this for like two years and after the storms we had last month kind of lit a fire under me. i picked up a used ft-891 a while back and thats going to be the main radio, and i have a decent little 40ah lifepo4 battery from bioenno that i use for portable ops already. got a pelican-style case from harbor freight (the apache ones, they work fine dont let anyone tell you otherwise) and i've been slowly throwing stuff in there.

so far i have the radio, battery, a end-fed antenna kit i built, some coax, my license and a laminated card with local repeater freqs and the simplex calling channels for our region, some basic tools like small screwdrivers and crimpers, and a notebook and pens. oh and a headlamp because obviously.

the problem is i keep second-guessing myself. like am i overthinking the antenna situation or is having just the one wire antenna kind of limiting. and i dont know if i should have a separate VHF/UHF HT in there just for local stuff or if i should count on my everyday HT that i carry. feels weird to have redundancy for redundancys sake but also thats kind of the whole point right

what do you guys actually bring that ended up being useful when it mattered

your list is honestly pretty solid for a first go-kit, better than mine was when i started. the thing that bit me at my first actual activation was power connectors — i had anderson powerpoles on everything but forgot a couple of the adapters i needed to daisy chain things and it was embarrassing. so i'd say make sure whatever power distribution you have in there is complete and tested, not just kind of assumed.

on the antenna question, i'd say yes have at least one backup. doesn't have to be fancy, a simple random wire and a 9:1 unun takes up almost no space. the endfed is great but if something goes wrong with that feedline or the matching unit you want an option. ive been bit by that one too.

and yeah keep the HT separate from the go-kit. your everyday radio should stay on you. the kit should be able to stand alone if you grab it and go without thinking. that's kind of the whole philosophy — if you have to remember to add something to it before deploying then it's not really a go-kit, it's just a pile of stuff.

the laminated freq card is something a lot of people skip and then regret it, good call on that. one thing i'd throw in — a small paper copy of the ICS forms we typically use for ARES stuff, 214 and 205 at minimum, even if you never end up using them it shows you showed up prepared and the served agency people notice that.

also depending how long you might be deployed, some kind of phone charging situation. i have a small usb tap off my battery through a buck converter set to 5v and it has saved me more than once just being able to keep a phone alive. not strictly ham radio but when you're running nets for 8 hours in a parking lot you're gonna want it.