so ive been licensed for about 3 years now and honestly been pretty lazy about emergency prep. got my technician then general and kind of just enjoyed the hobby without thinking too much about the serious side of it. but we had a pretty bad storm come through last month and the power was out for almost 4 days in my neighborhood and i kept thinking man i should really have something ready to go.

anyway ive started throwing together a go-kit. right now i have my FT-60 HT with a couple spare batteries, a roll of speaker wire ive been meaning to turn into a proper j-pole, some coax, a small notebook and pens, and my ARRL handbook. i grabbed one of those plastic tote bins from home depot to keep it all in.

what am i missing that i'd really kick myself for not having? im thinking about getting a mobile rig too, like a used 2520 or something, and running it off a deep cycle battery with a cigar lighter cable. also not sure if i should be investing more in HF capability or if that's overkill for what most people actually use these kits for in a real event. im in a suburban area, pretty close to the county EOC, so vhf/uhf is probably where most of the action would be locally. just want to make sure im not reinventing the wheel here when smarter people have already figured this stuff out

sounds like you're off to a solid start honestly. the things that always catch people off guard when they actually deploy -- and i say this from having done a few ARES activations over the years -- are the little comfort and logistics stuff, not the radio gear. like a headlamp with extra batteries, a decent pair of gloves if it's cold, some kind of rain protection for yourself and the gear. nobody thinks about that until they're standing outside a shelter at 2am.

for the radio side of things your instinct about vhf/uhf being the workhorse is pretty much right for local served agency work. HF is great and i love it but for EOC support and shelter comms you're mostly going to be on 2m or 70cm working repeaters or simplex. that said if you ever want to do any regional traffic or backup linking to distant EOCs then HF matters. depends on your ARES group's actual plans though -- worth asking your EC what they actually train for.

one thing i'd add to the kit pretty soon is a way to charge everything. a small solar panel or a power bank that can handle a proper 12v output makes a big difference after day two of no grid power. and document your frequencies somewhere on paper, dont rely on being able to pull up a repeater directory if your phone is dead.

get a headset or at least an earpiece. working in a noisy shelter or EOC without one is miserable and youll miss stuff. also bring food and water for yourself, i know it sounds dumb but i showed up to a drill once completely unprepared to be there for 6 hours and just kind of suffered lol

the j-pole from speaker wire thing works great btw, i have one and its my backup antenna, just make sure you tune it before you need it