so ive been meaning to do this for probably two years now and after the storms we had last month that knocked out power for like four days i finally got serious about it. right now i have a Yaesu FT-817ND which i know isnt the most powerful thing but its what i have, and im pairing it with a 20ah lifepo4 battery i picked up last spring. got a random wire antenna i can throw up in a tree, some coax, a few connectors.

the thing is i dont really know what else should go in the bag. like i have the radio stuff covered i think but what about the non-radio stuff? someone at the club meeting mentioned having a laminated card with local repeater frequencies and ARES net info but beyond that im kind of drawing a blank. also not sure what kind of bag/case people are actually using in the field, mine is just a duffel right now and thats probably not ideal if its raining.

any suggestions from people who have actually deployed these things would be really helpful, not looking for the perfect setup just something that actually works when things go sideways

the laminated card thing is huge, dont underestimate it. when youre stressed and tired at 2am you do not want to be digging through your phone trying to remember what the backup simplex frequency is. i have mine in a little clear sleeve on the outside of my bag. also put your call sign on everything, like everything, because if something happens to you someone else might need to operate your gear.

for the bag itself i switched to a Pelican 1510 a few years back and honestly its overkill for most things but when it got dropped off a truck at a flood activation last year everything inside was totally fine so i have no regrets. a lot of people use the 5.11 Rush bags or similar and those work great too, just make sure whatever you pick has some water resistance or throw a trash bag liner in there.

one thing i see people forget constantly is a way to charge stuff that isnt their radio battery. usb power bank, a small solar panel, something. and a headlamp. always a headlamp. you think youll have it but you wont and then youre fumbling around in the dark trying to make a log entry.

im pretty much in the same boat as you, just started building mine out a few months ago. one thing that helped me was actually going through an ICS-100 scenario in my head like pretending i got a call right now, what would i grab and what would i wish i had. thats when i realized i had no way to log contacts on paper if my laptop died, so now i keep a waterproof notepad and a couple pencils in there. pencils not pens because pens die in the cold.

the 817 is actually a solid go-kit radio imo, plenty of people use them for exactly this. maybe look at a small tuner if you want to get more out of that random wire on different bands.