so i've been putting off building a proper go-kit for probably two years now, always telling myself i'd get to it. after the storms we had last spring and our county ARES group getting activated, i realized i was basically useless because i had all this gear but none of it was organized or ready to just grab and go. embarrassing honestly.

anyway i finally sat down this past weekend and did it. i went with a Pelican 1510 carry-on case for the main radio stuff - got my IC-7300 in there (i know, probably overkill for emcomm but its what i have), a RigRunner power strip, a bunch of anderson powerpole cables i pre-made, and my little MFJ antenna tuner. batteries are separate in a smaller bag because of the weight. i also threw in a laminated card with my most-used frequencies for our local nets and the county emergency channels, which honestly feels dumb simple but i never had it written down before.

my question is - what do you guys keep in yours that you wish you'd thought of earlier? like the non-obvious stuff. i feel like ive got the radio side mostly covered but i keep reading about people having issues when they actually deploy and i dont want to learn all my lessons the hard way at an actual emergency.

the laminated freq card thing is not dumb at all, i cannot stress this enough - when you're running on 3 hours of sleep at a shelter at 2am your brain does not work and having that card is genuinely clutch. i've watched experienced operators fumble around trying to remember simplex frequencies they've used a hundred times.

things i added after my first real deployment that i wish i'd had - a small spiral notebook and like four or five pens, not just one. pens disappear. also a cheap pair of reading glasses even if you dont normally need them because reading labels and connectors in bad lighting when you're tired is rough. a headlamp obviously, but also a small battery powered lantern for when you're set up and need hands free lighting around your whole workspace. oh and zip ties. just a big bag of zip ties. you'll use them for something i promise.

one more thing and then i'll stop - i keep a one page document in my kit that has my FCC license info, a list of everything in the kit with serial numbers, and my emergency contact stuff. if something happens to me someone else can take over and know what they're dealing with.

nice work getting it done, the perfect is enemy of the good with go kits i think. mine sat half finished for forever too.

honestly the thing that bit me was power - i had plenty of cable and the radio was fine but i hadnt really thought through the whole chain. like i had a 35ah LiFePO4 but my charger was back home, and if you're deployed for more than a day you need a way to top it off whether thats solar or being able to plug into shore power. i ended up grabbing a small 100w panel and a cheap PWM controller and now that lives in the kit permanently. adds some weight but worth it.