so ive been meaning to do this for like two years now and after the storms we had last month i finally got serious about it. our ARES group has been nudging me to get a proper go-kit together but honestly i wasnt sure where to start and every time i googled it i got these massive checklists that felt overwhelming.

right now i have a Yaesu FT-857D that i use as my main HF rig and a couple handhelds, one is a Baofeng UV-5R and the other is a TYT MD-380 for DMR. i was thinking of just throwing those in a pelican case with some cables and calling it a kit but obviously thats not really a complete thing. what do you guys actually bring when you deploy? like power, antennas, logging stuff, all that. im especially fuzzy on the portable power side, do most people use LiFePO4 batteries now or still SLA?

also curious how you keep it all organized because i feel like id show up somewhere and just have a tangled mess of cables and adaptors and forget half of what i need anyway

oh man this is something i could talk about forever, been doing ARES activations for about 12 years now and my kit has gone through probably four or five complete overhauls. the biggest thing i learned early on is that your go-kit should match what you actually do, not what looks cool in someones youtube video. if your served agency needs you on VHF repeaters most of the time, you dont need to drag HF gear to every deployment.

on the power question — yeah most people have moved to LiFePO4 at this point, the weight savings over SLA is just too good to ignore especially if youre carrying stuff any distance. i run a 50ah battleborn battery and it gets me through a long shift without stressing. that said SLA is still totally fine if you have it, dont let anyone tell you you need to spend a bunch of money before you even know what your role is gonna be.

for organization i went with a medium sized rolling pelican case and used foam inserts for the radio and battery, then everything else — cables, anderson powerpole stuff, spare fuses, headset, notepad, pens — goes in a separate smaller bag that sits on top. the key thing is every time you pack it back up after a drill or activation, put it back exactly the same way. you want muscle memory so you can find stuff at 2am in the rain. also keep a laminated checklist taped inside the lid, saved me from forgetting things more than once

just getting into this myself so take this for what its worth but one thing someone told me at a club meeting that stuck with me — make sure whatever you put in the kit you actually know how to use without looking anything up. like i had this fancy logging software i thought id bring and then realized i barely knew how to set it up on a good day let alone under pressure. ended up just practicing with paper logs first which felt old fashioned but at least i know ill be able to do it

also the cable thing is real, i boughta bunch of those velcro cable ties and they helped a lot more than i expected