so ive been meaning to do this for probably two years now and kept putting it off but after the storms we had last month and the power being out for almost four days i figured i really cant keep procrastinating on this. currently i have my FT-857D which i love but its kind of a pain to pack up since all the cables are just loose in a drawer, a 40ah LiFePO4 battery i picked up last spring, and a random wire antenna i made from a youtube video that actually works surprisingly well on 40m.

what i dont really have figured out yet is how to keep it all organized and ready to grab fast. like right now it would take me probably 20-30 minutes to find everything and pack it, which kind of defeats the purpose. ive been looking at those harbor freight cases and also pelican knockoffs. anyone using those? also wondering if i should have a dedicated logging setup or if a notepad is fine for ARES stuff, havent been to a meeting in a while so i dont know what they expect.

also not sure if i need a second radio for VHF/UHF or if i can get away with the 857 for everything. figured id ask here before i spent money on something i dont need.

the harbor freight apache cases are genuinely solid for the price, ive dropped one off a tailgate and it was fine. the foam cutting is a little annoying to get right but once you do it everything stays put. one thing that changed my whole go-kit situation was pre-making ALL my cables to the exact length i needed and labeling both ends with those little flag labels you can get at staples. sounds dumb but before i did that i was always fishing around for the right coax or power lead.

for logging at an ARES activation honestly a paper log is totally fine, most served agencies dont care and some actually prefer paper because theres no tech to fail. that said i do keep a cheap chromebook in mine with JS8Call and a couple offline maps loaded, mostly because i got into the digital stuff and it doesnt add much weight. the 857 should cover you for most things but if youre going to do any repeater coordination or simplex locally having a handheld as a backup is worth it, i use a Baofeng just for that role and it costs nothing basically. main thing is just pick a container and commit to packing it once, then leave it packed. thats the part most people skip.

honestly the best advice i ever got on this was to do a timed drill where you actually try to deploy everything in your driveway like you would in the field. i thought i was pretty ready and then realized i forgot a ground stake, had the wrong PL-259 adapter, and my battery tender had kept the battery topped off but i hadnt actually tested the whole thing together in months. kind of humbling.

notepad is fine for logging in my experience, though if your ARES group uses ICS-214 forms you might want a few printed copies in there just in case someone asks. our EC is pretty particular about that stuff.