Pjshaw

The big draw back is you can't charge LIPO batteries at or below freezing temperatures. A 100 AH lipo battery is expensive compared to a flooded lead acid battery. I live in a cold climate also so I use a large flooded lead acid marine battery with a 100w solar panel and MPPT Renogy charge controller. It cost about the same as just one 100AH lipo battery. The battery is a backup to my backup. I have a portable generator and installed a transfer panel to safely connect it during a power outage. Half my house is powered from the generator which includes the furnace and fridge.

I used a discone antenna when I first got into ham radio. I had problems with intermodulation of different signals because the discone was such a wideband antenna. I got a monoband antenna and the intermodulation went away, got better performance on 2M (freq of interest at that time) and I could still receive airband just fine. I agree with WRZE995, get an antenna for the GMRS band.

DB404 is a great antenna but the vertical radiation angle is only 27 deg. Is that high enough to get over the bluffs? You might want an antenna with unity gain like the Tram-Browning BR6140 which has a much higher radiation angle.

The Tram 1486 antenna is a good one. You might want to pick up a Tram-Browning BR6140. It will have a higher radiation angle to get over hills.