My Most Used Radio Bag 

I really like your thought process with the 2 packs to keep your kit modular. So many people try to pack everything they could possibly ever use in any possible situation into one pack. One pack, that eventually gets left behind because its too much of a pain in the butt to lug around. You kept the total kit streamlined to the "probable" and not worrying about the "possible." Plus kept the high use items separate into a very manageable and useful EDC kit. Love it!

Never can have enough cables!

Great video, Jason. Our 2m/440 kits are very similar. I would suggest getting the AA battery case for the FT-5DR. You can buy batteries anywhere in a pinch. Also, like you, I discovered a long time ago that the Mobilinkd power button has a nasty tendency to turn on when accidentally bumped. It looks like you have a 3D printed protector in the case to mitigate this. I've had a piece of plastic and rubber band around mine since the TNC2 days. Thanks for sharing.

You have a great set of go bags.

Love kits!

Mine is using the Icom backpack with my Anytone 878 HT.

Great kit concept. I made similar for each of my IC-T2 VHF handhelds and a small one for cell phone support with SATCOM handheld.

Great info and tips... as usual! Thanks Jason!

N6GRG Mike (not captain ron) incidentally,, I've felt after working with JS8 at super low power (albeit on my 160 high elevation loop) that I can turn the power down most days to 5 watts and get a ton of stations responding from an HB and even more from a query for a call. I go up to full power and don't get many more responses. That said, JS8 would so far be one of the best super low power modes. I've read that VARAC uses some of the low signal technology (but from what I'm hearing , not) , rather its spread spectrum it (sort of) with pulses ? . I haven't done VARAC yet but I'm reading about it. One of the most interesting things I had read was error correction , it keeps trying till it gets a good ack back ? A lot to unpack.

Great video, I have actually been researching bags lately. I put together a grab bag to take when I am on an airplane flight, that is filled with lots of similar items like you have in your smaller pack. Those Maxpedition packs are good quality too.

Nice!

6:50 - Time for my gratuitous complaint about the FT-70 that discharges its battery in a week or two because it's impossible to turn off the "feature" that allows the radio to receive a signal telling it to turn on remotely, something I'd never use and certainly don't want draining the battery with no ability to disable this dubious "feature". I assume you have an insulator between the battery and FT-70, otherwise you'd need to recharge the FT-70 weekly. My FT-70 sits on the shelf in my shack on trickle charge in case I ever want to use it, but I have base station radios for that. In practice, I carry Baofeng HTs in the vehicles and go bag because they can be charged annually and always have at least half a charge a year later. The always-on "feature" of the FT-70 makes it useless for me, and I refuse to keep an insulator between the battery and HT and remember to remove it before use, or carry the battery in a separate bag and install it before use. Yaesu makes great radios that always seem to have some design flaw... but this one is a doozy that makes the FT-70 useless to me because I'm not using and charging it daily. Other Yaesu HTs have this undocumented battery draining "feature" so be careful when purchasing one for emergency communications or intermittent use of any sort. I'd like to upgrade from the lowly and nearly disposable Baofeng HTs. The IP-68 waterproof, nominally 10W and USB rechargeable RA89 from Retevis looks like a real winner as soon as I can program it with CHIRP. Then again, there is a version of the Baofeng UV-9R Pro that is rated IP-67 (water resistant) and 8W (probably 6W in the real world) that now also has USB-C programming. Chinese companies are at least trying to give customers what we want as Yaesu seems stuck on making radios with the features they like with little concern for how we might want to use their products.

What about 220? In a real SHTF situation the main frequencies may be saturated. 220 is a great option.

Love. Thank you for the video. i will be using this as a template. Is there any way we can look into these J-Pole antennas? Maybe we can make them.

Maxpedition Pack (Large) - amzn.to/3r3tbcg Maxpedition Pack - amzn.to/3Pv0ahA S Biner - km4ack.square.site/product/s-type-carabiner/46 Gear Ties - amzn.to/3PE1L6b Mobilinkd TNC - www.mobilinkd.com/ Fisher Space Pen - amzn.to/46bcWIY Folding Keyboard - amzn.to/468JLGd Battery Bank - amzn.to/3r6bEQH Bank Line - amzn.to/3RD9RgT Maxpedition AUP Pack - amzn.to/3rgsQTx Yaesu HT Adapter - amzn.to/3RhiP37 USB GPS - amzn.to/3ZjPoiA Digirig - amzn.to/3Pl5O5Z Talent Cell Battery - amzn.to/44QPaAH Raspberry Pi 4 - amzn.to/3PD0RXz Micro SD Card - amzn.to/3sPe2M1 Signal Stuff Antenna - signalstuff.com/product/super-elastic-signal-stick-bnc?ref=2223 BNC Mag Mount - signalstuff.com/product/bnc-magnetic-mount-for-signal-sticks?ref=2223 As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases

Jason, how do you go with swapping out the batteries on the FT5 on a regular basis? Yaesu use a similar battery clip on the batteries of the VX-8 and I found that those clips eventually broke after a time of swapping the batteries and I was throwing away a perfectly good battery because I was unable to keep it attached to the VX-8. Along with the FT5 I have kept my VX-8 as it is a damned great radio and the one great thing Yaesu did was to allow the batteries from both radios to be charged in the same sit in charger, at long last one manufacturer finally had some sense and "hopefully" thought about the pockets of it's customers. Great videos you put together mate. Cheers, Ron. VK3ANT

Great video as usual. Two questions: 1. I haven't found your reasoning to switching to BNC for all radios and would like to know why. 2. Are you using an adapter to switch to BNC or pulling the actual SMA out of the radio itself?

The small black Maxpedition pack in the video is the EDC model but the link above is for the BEEFY model... is this an oversight or an intentional recommendation to get the latter?