so ive been meaning to do this for like two years and after the last storm knocked out power for four days I figured it was time to stop procrastinating. picked up a pelican case at a swap meet and started throwing stuff in but now im second guessing everything.

right now I have my FT-817 in there, a couple of spare fuses, some coax with PL-259s on both ends, a notebook and pens (old school I know), and a little 7ah SLA battery. I've got a roll of wire I was gonna use as a simple dipole if I need it. been running it off a 40w solar panel I borrowed from my buddy but I dont own one myself yet.

the thing is I dont really know what actual deployment looks like. I've read about ARES stuff but never really participated, so I'm kind of guessing at what you'd actually need out in the field. is there a standard loadout people use or is it totally just depends on your situation? also wondering if the 817 is enough or if people usually bring something with a bit more power. I can run it at 5w obviously but figured id ask.

the FT-817 is honestly a great choice for a go-kit because it covers everything and sips power, five watts is plenty for most local emcomm work especially if you're just relaying traffic through a repeater. the guys running 100w rigs burn through batteries so fast it becomes its own problem.

few things I'd add from experience doing ARES deployments over the years — a laminated copy of your local repeater frequencies and the ARES net schedule, because you will not want to be fumbling through menus under stress. extra VHF/UHF handheld at minimum a baofeng or something, because sometimes the main rig goes down or you need someone to monitor a second freq. headlamp with extra batteries. granola bars or whatever. sounds dumb but I've sat in an EOC for 14 hours with nothing.

the solar panel situation you should sort out before you need it. even a cheap 25-50w panel and a little charge controller makes you self-sufficient for as long as the sun is out. and honestly the notebook is not old school, it's smart, logs on paper survive when your tablet dies.

im in the same boat, just joined ARES a few months ago and my go-kit is basically a backpack with my UV-5R and some odds and ends lol. what kind of antenna are you planning on? like for the 817 on HF i mean. the wire dipole sounds good but do you have a way to get it up in the air? I keep reading about people using a slingshot to throw a line over a tree branch and that sounds either really useful or really embarrassing depending on how the throw goes