so ive been a ham for about 3 years now and kept telling myself i was going to put together a real go-kit for emergencies and i just... never did. kept using the same excuse that my shack setup was good enough. well after the ice storm last february knocked out power for 6 days i decided that was it, time to actually do this right.

right now i have a Yaesu FT-857D that i was planning to use as the main rig, a 40ah lifepo4 battery, some coax, and i threw in a j-pole i built last year in a tupperware container. also have a basic logging notebook and a few pens which feels embarrassing to even mention but hey.

my question is more like... what do people actually find themselves reaching for when they activate for ARES or just a personal emergency situation? i feel like there's probably a whole category of stuff im not even thinking about. adapters maybe? i have very few of the little SO-239 to BNC type adapters and i know those have saved people before. also not sure if i should have a second HT in there or if thats overkill for a solo operator go bag.

any thoughts welcome, especially from folks who have actually deployed and found out the hard way what they forgot

the adapter thing is huge, you nailed that. i have a small ziplock bag that is just adapters — BNC to PL-259, SMA female to BNC, a couple barrel connectors, one of those anderson powerpole to cigarette lighter adapters — and i have used almost every single one of them at some point. feels silly until it saves you.

one thing i see people overlook constantly is documentation. like printed documentation. frequencies for your local repeaters, ARES net schedules, ICS forms if youre doing any kind of served agency work. your phone might die or you might be in a situation where you cant look things up. i laminated a single reference card with my most used freqs and it lives in the kit permanently now.

a second HT is not overkill at all in my opinion. i keep a Baofeng in mine honestly just as a backup even though i know people will roll their eyes at that. if my main rig goes down i still need to check into nets and coordinate. also extra batteries for the HT, not just the big main battery. the little things run out faster than you think when youre monitoring all day.

sounds like youre off to a better start than most people who just throw a radio in a bag and call it a kit. the fact that youre thinking about it this way means you'll probably fill in the gaps pretty quick.

dont forget a way to charge that lifepo4 that isnt just wall power. solar panel or a car charger cable at minimum. i learned that one the dumb way, showed up to a deployment with a full battery and no way to top it off and by hour 10 i was starting to get nervous. also lighting. a headlamp sounds obvious but i did not have one in my kit the first time i deployed for a hurricane activation and it was not fun trying to find connectors in the dark.