so ive been a ham for about 3 years now, got my general last spring, and i keep telling myself im going to get a proper go-kit together but i just never do it. last month we had a pretty bad ice storm here and the local ARES group got activated and i showed up with basically nothing organized — just my HT and a random bag of cables i grabbed on the way out the door. felt pretty embarrassed honestly.

so now im actually trying to do this right. i have a Yaesu FT-857D that i was thinking about using as the main rig since its pretty compact and does HF/VHF/UHF. power is the big question for me. do most people run a dedicated battery setup in their kit or just rely on whatever power is available at the served agency? i was looking at those bioenno lithium packs but theyre not cheap. also wondering about antennas — i assume a portable dipole or something like a buddistick type thing? idk

also what do you keep in the kit that isnt radio stuff? like documentation, logs, that kind of thing. i feel like theres a whole organizational side to this that i keep overlooking

the 857 is a solid choice for a go-kit, ive seen a lot of guys run that exact radio. the power question really depends on where you expect to deploy — if youre going to a EOC or fire station theres usually shore power but you really cant count on it. i personally run a 20ah lifepo4 battery and it gets me through a full day of mixed rx/tx no problem. the bioenno packs are good but honestly some of the other brands have gotten competitive on price, worth shopping around a bit. dakota lithium is another one people seem to like.

for the non-radio stuff — this is where most people drop the ball and you're smart to think about it early. i keep a laminated card with all my local repeater frequencies, the ARES nets, simplex calling freqs, and the ICS forms i might need (213 and 214 at minimum). spare AA and AAA batteries, a headlamp, basic hand tools, coax adapters, and a little notebook with a pen taped to it. sounds obvious but when youre tired and stressed at 2am you'll be glad everything is just there. also a copy of your license obviously.

the antenna thing i'd just get a simple linked dipole kit or even just make one — center insulator, some wire, and a couple of SO239 connectors. cheap and it works. the buddistick type things are fine but you're paying a lot for convenience when wire works just as well most of the time.

one thing nobody told me when i built my first kit was to actually TEST it before you need it. like actually deploy the whole thing in your backyard or wherever and run it for a few hours. i found two broken coax connectors and a power cable that had a bad crimp just doing that. would've been a nightmare if i found that at an actual event

also consider a checklist that lives in the bag. every time you deploy and pack back up you go through it. its the kind of thing that feels like overkill until the one time you leave your mic at home