so ive been a ham for about three years now and honestly i keep telling myself im going to get a proper go-kit together and then just... dont. after the last big storm that came through here i got a message from my county ARES coordinator asking if anyone could set up at the EOC and i had to basically admit i wasnt really ready to just grab and go. kind of embarrassing honestly.

so im starting from scratch. i have an IC-7300 which i know isnt the most portable thing in the world but i also have a Yaesu FT-891 which seems more go-kit friendly. my question is really about power — do most people run off a big lithium battery pack or are you still doing the old school group 31 lead acid thing. i see a lot of guys with the bioenno stuff but those arent cheap. also how do you handle antennas, like do you just throw a bunch of different things in the bag or do you have one go-to antenna that handles most situations.

any advice welcome, especially from people who have actually deployed and not just planned to deploy (i know the feeling lol)

honestly the power question is the one that trips everybody up at first. i went through three different setups before landing on something i was happy with. i use a 40ah lifepo4 from bioenno now and yeah they are pricey but i deployed twice last year and not having to worry about the battery going flat or hauling around something that weighs 60 pounds made a huge difference. lead acid is fine if budget is the main concern but once you lift a group 31 into the back of your car a few times you start doing the math on whether the bioenno is actually that expensive.

for antennas i keep it simple. a buddistick and about 30 feet of wire for an end fed if i need to improvise. the buddistick covers me for most portable HF work and the wire is basically free so why not throw it in. the guys who show up with four different antenna systems and spend an hour setting up are not the guys you want at an activation honestly.

biggest thing though — just get something put together even if its not perfect. a kit that exists beats a perfect kit you havent built yet. i had a checklist taped inside my pelican case for like two years before i actually trusted myself to just go down the list without reading every line.

the FT-891 is a solid choice for this, good call leaving the 7300 at home for deployments. i went the same route actually, mine lives in a plastic tote with a handle that i can grab in about 90 seconds. nothing fancy.

one thing i dont see people talk about enough is logging and documentation when you deploy. i spent so long thinking about radio stuff that i showed up to my first real activation with no way to take decent notes, no printed ICS forms, nothing. the served agency wanted paper logs and i was scrambling. worth thinking about the non-radio parts of the kit too if you havent already.