so ive been a ham for about 3 years now and keep telling myself ill get a proper go-kit together and just... never do it. then we had a pretty bad storm roll through last month and our local ARES group got activated and i showed up with basically my HT and a half charged power bank and felt like a complete idiot standing next to guys with these organized pelican cases and everything.

so im actually doing it this time. ive got an FT-857D which i figured would be good since it does HF/VHF/UHF all in one, and i have a decent LiFePO4 battery from a previous project thats like 30Ah. what i dont really know is how to think about the whole thing — like how long should i be planning to run for without recharging, what antennas make sense to have ready to go, do people typically pre-program everything or rely on their memory in the field. any advice from people who have actually deployed would be really helpful. im not even sure if i should get a second radio for redundancy or just focus on making the one kit really solid first.

honestly the fact that you showed up at all puts you ahead of a lot of people, dont be too hard on yourself. but yeah getting organized makes a huge difference when things get real.

for what its worth, the way i think about it is plan for 72 hours minimum without being able to recharge anything. thats kind of the standard emergency management thinking — 3 days self sufficient. your 30Ah battery is a decent start but you gotta actually measure your radio's draw at typical operating power. the 857 is not exactly known for being efficient on receive so i'd run some numbers before assuming you're set. i usually keep a small folding solar panel in my kit too just in case, even a 50 watt panel gives you something to work with.

on antennas — i keep a few options because you honestly dont know what environment you'll be in. a simple linked dipole rolled up, a magmount for the vehicle, and a small yagi for 2m if i need to hit a specific repeater that's marginal from where im at. pre-program everything you can think of, all the local repeaters, simplex calling freqs, NOAA, all of it. in a real event your brain is doing a thousand other things and muscle memory on the radio matters.

and i'd say get the one kit really solid before adding a second radio. redundancy is great but a half-finished kit with two radios is worse than one complete kit.

im kind of in the same boat as you so take this for what its worth but one thing somebody told me at a hamfest that stuck with me — your go-kit is only as good as how often you actually test it. like dont just pack it and leave it in a closet. actually set it up in the backyard every couple months and pretend you're deployed. you'll figure out real fast what you forgot or what doesnt work anymore. batteries especially, they can sit fine and then surprise you at the worst time.