so ive been meaning to do this for like two years and after the last bad storm season i finally sat down and started actually building out a go-kit. right now i have my FT-857D, a couple of spare fuses, my SignaLink, a tablet with Winlink and APRS stuff loaded up, and a basic dipole i can throw in a tree. power is a 20ah lifepo4 battery and a small 50w panel.

thing is i dont really know what i dont know, you know? like i feel like im forgetting something obvious. ive heard people talk about having laminated frequency cards and stuff like that but i also feel like my tablet covers most of that. my local ARES group does drills maybe twice a year but honestly we havent done a full deployment sim so i dont have much to compare against.

anyone who has actually deployed for a real event, what was the thing that surprised you or that you wished you had packed? not looking for the obvious stuff like extra coax and adapters, more like the dumb little things you never think about until youre standing in a parking lot at 2am wondering why you forgot it

the thing that got me my first real deployment was lighting. sounds so obvious but i had everything in a big pelican case and no way to see inside it at night without holding my phone in my teeth. now i keep a couple small USB LED strips and a headlamp right at the top of the kit, always accessible. also zip ties. i cannot stress this enough. you will always need more zip ties than you think and you will never regret having a hundred of them in a little bag.

the laminated cards thing is actually worth doing even if you have a tablet. batteries die, screens crack, sometimes you just want to hand someone a card so they know what frequencies the net is on without having to unlock your device. takes like 20 minutes to make and its one of those things you forget until youre grateful you did it.

your power setup sounds solid honestly. the one thing id add is some way to charge your phone independently from your radio power budget. people underestimate how much they lean on their phone during an activation even when the radio is doing the main work.

oh man the 2am parking lot thing is SO real, been there more than once lol. honestly the thing i always forget and always regret is food and water. like actual sustenance. i get so focused on the radio gear that i show up with a fully operational station and no snacks and then im useless after four hours because im hungry and cranky.

also a small notepad and a few pens taped to the inside lid of whatever case you use. paper doesnt need batteries and sometimes you need to write down traffic that you cant type fast enough or your laptop is occupied doing something else. sounds old school but seriously.

your kit sounds way better than mine was starting out so youre already ahead of where i was