so we finally got around to doing a full scale simulated disaster exercise with our county ARES group, something we'd been putting off for like two years honestly. the scenario was a major flood event that took out the repeater infrastructure and we had to coordinate between the EOC, two shelters, and a mobile command post using only simplex HF and some VHF simplex on 146.52.

i want to share what went wrong because i think thats more useful than the stuff that worked. first — and this is embarrassing — half our operators showed up not knowing their go-kit battery situation. like they assumed everything was charged from whenever they last used it. we had one station that was basically dead within 45 minutes. second thing, net control kept reverting to using jargon and abbreviations that the newer operators just didnt understand, which caused some real confusion when we were trying to pass simulated health and welfare traffic.

the HF side actually went better than i expected. we had solid winlink connectivity through a distant RMS gateway when local stuff was unavailable, which was the whole point of the exercise. but getting people comfortable with that ahead of time is crucial, a few folks had never actually sent a real winlink message before the drill which... yeah.

anyway curious if others have run similar exercises and what surprised you. also wondering how other groups handle training for the operators who only show up occasionally — thats our biggest headache right now.

the battery thing you mentioned — we had the exact same problem at our drill a couple years back. its one of those things that seems obvious but nobody thinks about until it fails. our EC now requires everyone to do a battery check and log it at the monthly meeting and honestly it helped a lot. still get the occasional person who forgets but its way better.

the jargon issue is real too. we had an EC who was ex military and he'd slip into procedure speak constantly and the newer folks would just go quiet because they didnt want to ask what something meant on a live net. we eventually added a quick plain language reminder at the start of every activation or drill. just a one liner from net control that says something like hey we're using plain language today, no 10 codes, if something isnt clear just ask. sounds basic but it changed the feel of the whole thing.

for your occasional operators question, i dont have a great answer. we struggle with that too. the people who show up once every few months are usually the ones who are least prepared when something real happens, but they're also volunteers so theres only so much you can push.

this is really helpful to read actually, im fairly new to ARES and just got my general so ive been trying to understand what these drills actually look like in practice vs what the handbook describes. the winlink part especially — i set it up on my laptop a few months ago and sent a couple test messages but i honestly dont know if id be able to troubleshoot it under pressure if something wasnt connecting right. maybe i should find someone to practice with more before the next exercise.