So after years of telling myself I'd get around to it I finally put together an actual go-kit this past weekend. Nothing fancy, just a Pelican-style case I had sitting around and started stuffing it with stuff I figured I'd need if things went sideways and I had to set up somewhere fast.

Right now I've got my Yaesu FT-857D in there, a LiFePO4 battery (the 30ah one from Bioenno), some coax, a few PL-259 connectors and a cheap soldering iron, a laminated card with local repeater freqs and CTCSS tones, and a copy of my license obviosly. Also threw in a small notepad and a handful of pens because I kept forgetting how often you actually need to write stuff down during a net.

What I'm not sure about is the antenna situation. I have a mag mount for the car and a random wire that I've used portable before but neither feels like a solid permanent solution for a kit that's supposed to be grab-and-go. Anyone else running a similar setup, what do you use for HF portable that doesn't take forever to deploy? And is there anything obvious I'm probably forgetting that you wish someone had told you when you put your first kit together?

Antennas are always the thing people underestimate in a go-kit, you're not wrong to think about it. Personally I run a linked dipole for HF, takes maybe 10 minutes to string up between two trees or a mast and a fence post and it covers 40 and 20 which is honestly most of what matters in an emergency. There are some decent commercial versions but I made mine for like 15 bucks in wire and some dogbone insulators.

One thing I'd add to your list that a lot of people skip — a small spiral notebook is fine but also have some kind of ICS-213 general message forms printed out, like a stack of them. When you're actually deployed at a served agency they sometimes expect proper documentation and fumbling around trying to remember the format under stress is no fun. Ask me how I know.

Oh and zip ties. Just... a lot of zip ties. And a headlamp that's not the one you use hiking so it stays in the kit. That one sounds obvious and I still forgot it the first time I actually needed to go somewhere at 2am.

im kind of in the same boat as you, just got my general last spring and trying to figure all this out. i went to a ARES meeting a few months ago and one of the elmers there said the antenna thing is basically the eternal debate lol. he uses a buddistick for portable HF and swears by it but another guy said they're fiddly to tune and he'd rather just throw wire in a tree.

honestly the thing that stuck with me was he said whatever antenna you pick, practice deploying it at home first. like actually time yourself. because if you cant do it in the dark in your backyard you definitely cant do it under pressure at some EOC parking lot you've never been to before. that made a lot of sense to me even if i havent fully taken my own advice yet