so ive been meaning to do this for like two years and last weekend i finally sat down and actually built out a proper go-kit. nothing fancy but at least its something. i ended up using one of those harbor freight pelican-style cases, threw in my FT-891, a small switching power supply, some coax jumpers, a few connectors, my logging notebook, a printed copy of local ARES frequencies and the county emergency plan, some basic hand tools, and a headlamp because apparently i always forget one when i need it most.

took it out to the driveway and ran it off a 35ah AGM battery i had sitting around just to see how long i could operate before it got low. ran about 4 hours of mixed receive and some local net check-ins and it barely moved. felt pretty good about that. the whole kit fits in the back of my car without taking up too much room which was kind of the goal.

couple things im not sure about though. do most of you guys keep a dedicated antenna in the kit or just grab whatever you have? right now i just tossed in a tape measure yagi i built a while back but im not sure thats the most practical thing for general use. also do you keep your kit in the car permanently or just bring it out when theres an actual activation or exercise? wondering about heat in the summer messing with the battery or the radio.

nice work actually getting it done, most people talk about it forever and never pull the trigger. for the antenna question, i keep a simple 2m/70cm dual band vertical in mine, just a little mag mount whip, its not glamorous but its always ready to go and works fine for most ARES stuff we do around here. the tape measure yagi is great if you know youre going to need directional but for showing up somewhere and getting on the air fast the vertical wins every time in my experience.

on the heat thing, yeah dont leave a sealed AGM in a hot car all summer. ive seen them swell up and one of the guys in our group actually had one leak a little. i bring mine in when its not actively needed, keeps the battery healthier longer and it forces me to do a top-off charge every month or so anyway which is good practice. some guys leave the radio in the car and just store the battery inside, thats a reasonable middle ground depending on how fast you need to be able to deploy.

35ah battery running 4 hours sounds about right depending on how much you were transmitting. one thing i added to mine that i wish id done from the start was a small battery monitor that shows voltage and estimated remaining capacity, just a cheap one off amazon, but it takes the guesswork out when youre mid-deployment and wondering if you need to start conserving. also threw a solar panel charge controller in the lid of the case so i can trickle charge off a small folding panel if i need to extend operations, havent actually needed it in a real activation yet but the one drill where we did a 12 hour exercise it came in handy.

one other thing, and this is just me being paranoid probably, i keep a laminated card in the kit with my call sign, my served agency contact info, and the ICS check-in procedure for my county. sounds dumb but when its 2am and someones asking you questions youre glad its written down somewhere.