so i finally got to participate in my first actual ARES activation last weekend, not just a training exercise but the real thing. county emergency management called us in because of the flooding over near the river and they needed backup comms at a few of the shelters since the phone lines were spotty and their repeater was having issues.

i've been to maybe 4 or 5 of the monthly nets and did the ARRL EC-001 course online a while back but nothing really prepares you for showing up to an actual shelter with your go-bag and just... being useful. or trying to be anyway. i was assigned to the high school gymnasium which was running as a red cross shelter and basically my job was passing traffic between there and the EOC on the county simplex frequency.

honestly the thing that surprised me most was how much of the job is just waiting around and being ready. like 90% waiting, 10% actually keying up. but when they needed a welfare message relayed or a supply request passed along it felt like it actually mattered which was kind of a cool feeling. my EC was great about checking in on me periodically which helped since i was a little nervous about screwing something up.

anyway i guess my question is — for anyone who's done a lot of these activations, what do you wish you'd known going in? i felt underprepared in some ways and not sure what to work on before the next one.

that's awesome that you got to do a real one so early, a lot of guys go years before they get called out for an actual event. the waiting thing is real and honestly some newer folks get frustrated by it and think nothing is happening but that's just how it works. the value is being there and ready.

what i'd say — and this took me a couple activations to figure out — is get your logging habits down cold before you need them under pressure. ICS 309 forms, knowing how to write a clean message, being able to hand off your log to someone else if you get relieved. sounds boring but when things get busy at the EOC end and they're asking for a recap of traffic you really dont want to be flipping through a messy notebook trying to remember what time you relayed that supply request.

also just talk to your EC about what went well and what didn't, they usually appreciate that kind of debrief conversation and it helps them know where to plug you in next time. sounds like you did great for a first activation though.

welcome to the waiting game lol. seriously though your experience sounds pretty typical and the fact that you stayed engaged and didnt just sit there on your phone the whole time already puts you ahead of some people ive seen at these things. the EC-001 is a good start but if you havent looked at EC-016 yet that one gets more into the actual operational stuff and i found it more useful day to day.