so ive been a ham for about three years now and kept telling myself id put together a proper go-kit but never actually did it. then last month we had that bad storm come through and the county ARES group got activated and i showed up basically with nothing useful - just my HT and a charging cable. felt pretty embarrassed honestly.

so now im actually doing it. i picked up a used Yaesu FT-857D and im thinking of building everything into a pelican case or maybe one of those harbor freight cases with the foam. my question is what do people actually bring in these kits? like i see some guys show up with these giant setups and other guys keep it really minimal. also not sure what antennas make the most sense - i have a buddistick but wondering if theres something better for portable HF. battery situation is also confusing me, lithium vs AGM, what are people actually using day to day for this stuff.

any advice welcome, especially from people who have actually deployed and not just set up kits that sit in a closet

oh man this is something i could talk about forever. went through the same thing a few years back after showing up to a deployment embarrassingly underprepared. the biggest lesson i learned is to think about what your actual mission is going to be before you start stuffing things in a case. like if youre supporting a shelter operation you probably dont need a full HF setup, 2m/70cm might be all you use. but if youre doing any kind of backup traffic handling or linking into a regional net then yeah the 857 or something like it makes sense.

for batteries i run a 20ah lithium (bioenno) and honestly havent looked back. the weight difference vs AGM is significant when youre hauling stuff. my whole kit fits in a rolling toolbox from harbor freight, not even a pelican, and ive deployed it four or five times now without issues. the foam cases look cool but the rolling toolbox with drawers is way more practical when youre actually digging around for stuff under stress.

antennas - the buddistick is fine but i switched to a resonant linked dipole for HF and its been more reliable for me. takes a few minutes longer to set up but performance is noticeably better. also make sure you have coax adapters, a basic toolkit, and honestly just a notepad and pencils. sounds dumb but youll be glad you have it.

the one thing nobody told me when i built my first kit was to actually practice deploying it before you need it. like time yourself setting everything up from scratch. i thought mine was dialed in and then the first time i set it up under pressure i couldnt find half my stuff and the connectors were all tangled. now i do a full setup drill every few months just to stay sharp and also to remind myself what i actually have in there, stuff gets forgotten