so ive been a ham for about 3 years now and keep telling myself im going to put together a proper go-kit but never actually do it. well after the storms we had last month knocked out power for almost 4 days i figured it was time to stop procrastinating. the thing is i dont really know what the "right" way to do this is. like do i build around HF or just VHF/UHF, do i need a separate power setup, how much gear is too much gear. i want it to be something i can actually grab and go in a hurry but also be useful if i end up at an EOC or something for a few days. anyone been through this process and have thoughts on what they wish theyd done differently

oh man this is something i think about a lot. went through the same thing a couple years back after joining our county ARES group. what i ended up doing was building two kits actually — a small one that fits in a backpack with just my FT-817 (well FT-818 now), a small LiFePO4 battery, and a random wire antenna that i can toss in a tree. that one i can grab in 60 seconds and it covers HF plus 2m/70cm. then i have a bigger pelican case with more gear for if im going to be somewhere for more than a few hours, has a bigger power supply, spare cables, logging stuff, that kind of thing.

the power thing is honestly where people get tripped up the most in my experience. you need way more capacity than you think you do, especially if youre running any kind of digital modes or leaving things on standby overnight. i run a 40ah battery now and even that gets a little nervous after a full day. also dont forget a way to recharge — i have a small solar panel and a charge controller in the big kit.

my main regret is i spent too long trying to get everything perfect before i actually tested anything under realistic conditions. just throw it together and do a field day style exercise with it, youll figure out real fast what you actually need versus what you thought you needed

honestly the best thing I did was just join a local ARES or RACES group and see what everyone else was using before I bought anything. saved me from making a bunch of expensive mistakes. your county emergency coordinator has probably already thought through a lot of this and has preferences about what frequencies and modes the group actually operates on — theres no point building an elaborate HF setup if your local group is all on 2m FM for the first 48 hours of any activation anyway.

that said a basic kit with an IC-705 or similar and a decent battery plus a j-pole you can hang somewhere gets you pretty far. dont overthink the antenna situation too much at first, a mag mount on a car roof works fine for a lot of situations.