so ive been a ham for about three years now and kept telling myself id put together a proper go-kit for emergencies and i just never got around to it. well we had a pretty bad storm come through last month and our local ARES group got activated and i showed up basically with nothing useful — just my HT and no extra batteries, no backup power, nothing. felt pretty useless standing there while the guys with actual kits were doing all the work.

so now im actually serious about it. ive got a Yaesu FT-891 that id like to build around since its pretty compact and already does HF and i figure thats more useful than just a VHF/UHF setup for longer distances. but i dont really know what order to tackle stuff in. do i start with the radio and work outward from there, or do i figure out power first? also whats a realistic budget for a decent but not crazy expensive kit, like something that actually works but im not spending two grand on a pelican case full of gear right before christmas

any advice from people who have actually deployed these things would be really helpful, not just theoretical stuff

oh man i was exactly where you were like two years ago. the storm thing is what got me too, nothing motivates you like feeling useless when people actually need help lol.

the way i approached it was power first honestly. if you dont have a reliable way to run your radio for 12+ hours you dont really have a kit, you just have a radio in a bag. i picked up a 20ah LiFePO4 battery from bioenno and a cheap solar panel for recharging and that became the backbone of everything else. the FT-891 is a solid choice by the way, runs well at lower power settings and wont kill your battery as fast if you dial it back to like 50 watts.

after power i worried about antenna — i went with a simple end-fed for HF because it sets up fast and doesnt need a ground plane. then cables, adapters, a notebook and pens because seriously dont forget analog stuff, coax, a small tuner. i packed everything into a medium harbor freight case with foam and the whole thing was probably under 400 bucks spread over a few months so it doesnt have to happen all at once

the 891 is a great starting point. one thing a lot of people overlook is documentation — like printed copies of local repeater frequencies, your served agency contacts, ICS forms if your group uses those. you'd be surprised how often people have all the radio gear and zero paperwork and then cant remember a phone number when the cell network is down.

also consider a small notebook computer or tablet loaded with stuff offline, winlink setup if your group does that, maybe fldigi. not saying you need all that day one but its worth thinking about where you want to eventually go with it. start simple, get the core stuff working reliably, then add layers. a kit thats half finished but fully tested beats a fancy one that you havent actually practiced with