so ive been a ham for about three years now and honestly kind of embarrassed to admit i dont have any kind of go-kit or emergency setup at all. just my base station and a handheld. been thinking about this more lately after we had a pretty bad ice storm and the power was out for like 4 days and i realized i was basically useless from a comms standpoint.

anyway i want to put something together that i could grab and go if i needed to, or just have ready at home if the grid goes down. problem is every time i look this up online i get overwhelmed by all the options. some guys seem to have like these massive pelican cases with everything in them and other people say just keep it simple. i guess my question is what would you actually prioritize if you were starting from scratch? im thinking something that could run on battery power for at least a day or two and cover local repeaters plus maybe some HF if i can swing it budget-wise.

also does it make sense to join the local ARES group first before building this stuff out, or just start putting things together on my own?

honestly the ARES question and the go-kit question are kind of the same thing, joining the group first will save you a lot of money because you'll find out what freqs and modes they actually use in your area before you go buying gear. nothing worse than showing up with an IC-7300 all proud of yourself and finding out the local EmComm group needs Winlink capability or something specific you didnt plan for.

that said the basics are pretty universal. a good dual band mobile rig you can run from a battery, i use a 40ah lithium iron phosphate battery and it'll run my 50w radio for a full day easy with normal usage. some kind of solar panel if you're thinking longer term outages. and honestly just a simple antenna situation — a jpole for vhf or even just a mag mount on a cookie sheet works fine for most situations.

the pelican case guys arent wrong but you dont need to start there. i started with a plastic storage bin from walmart and gradually upgraded. main thing is just having it all in one place so you can actually grab it and go without running around the house looking for your power cable at 2am.

yeah what he said about ares is good advice. i will add though, dont wait until your kit is perfect to get involved. I showed up to my first ARES meeting with literally just my HT and a spare battery pack and nobody cared, they were just glad to have another operator. you learn way more at those meetings and exercises than reading about it.

one thing i wish somebody had told me early on — write down your frequencies, your login info for whatever digital modes you use, any notes about your setup, and laminate it or stick it in the case. sounds dumb but when things are actually stressful you will forget stuff you think you know by heart.