so ive been a ham for about 8 months now, got my general last spring and ive been mostly doing stuff on 40m and some local repeater stuff. someone at my club mentioned ARES and said i should look into it but honestly the info on the websites is kind of all over the place depending on what county you look at.

my main question is what actually happens at a real activation, like not a drill but an actual emergency. do they expect you to just show up and know what youre doing or is there training beforehand that walks you through it. i took the ICS-100 and 200 online courses because someone said you need those but i dont really know what comes next or if theres more i should be doing before i even show up to a meeting.

also not sure if my setup is good enough — i have a baofeng and a mobile rig in the car, nothing fancy. would that even be useful or do they need people with bigger stations

hey welcome to the rabbit hole lol. so i've been with ARES for going on 6 years now and the honest answer is it really depends on your local group. some counties are super organized with monthly nets and tabletop exercises and some are kind of... not. best thing you can do is just show up to a meeting and see what the vibe is like.

as for real activations, yeah youre not gonna get thrown in blind. most of the actual work at a deployment is message handling, net control stuff, or acting as a liaison at a shelter or EOC. the ICS courses you took are actually exactly what they want so youre ahead of a lot of people who show up without those. and dont worry about your gear, honestly a mobile rig and a handheld is perfectly fine for most assignments, especially shelter support where you might just be relaying info between the EOC and the site. i ran just a 50 watt mobile for my first two activations and it was fine.

the training drills are where you really figure things out before it matters. try to get to those if your group does them, even if it feels kind of low stakes at the time.

the ARRL has a page on ARES training levels if you havent seen it already, theres like a basic through advanced progression with specific courses tied to each level. IS-700 is another one they usually want besides the ICS ones you already did. your EC (emergency coordinator) for your county should be able to tell you whats required locally because it does vary.

one thing i'd say just from watching new folks come into our group — dont overthink the gear situation right now. they need warm bodies who know basic radio procedure and can show up reliably way more than they need someone with a big fancy station. if you can copy a message, pass traffic, and not panic when things get busy youre already useful.