so i finally got activated for the first time last weekend, we had a pretty serious flooding situation in the county and our emergency coordinator called everyone in. ive been doing the training nets and ICS courses for about a year now and honestly i thought i had a pretty good handle on things but being there in the actual EOC is just... different. the noise level, everyone talking over each other, trying to keep a net log while also monitoring two frequencies, its a lot more to juggle than the training exercises made it seem.

one thing that caught me off guard was how much of the actual communication ended up being on simplex VHF rather than the repeater we always practice on. the repeater was getting hammered and the EC made the call to move some traffic off it. i had my HT and a mag mount on my car so i was okay but some of the guys who only had handhelds were really struggling with range especially when they were deployed to the shelter sites.

anyway not really asking anything specific just thought id share since ive seen a lot of threads here about whether ARES training is actually worth doing and... yeah it is. you still wont be fully ready until you do the real thing but the training absolutely helped. just wish id practiced more with my logging under stress i guess

that sounds like a really solid first activation honestly. the repeater getting overloaded thing is super common and its one of those things that doesnt come up enough in training. our group actually started doing simplex-only exercises a couple times a year because of exactly that scenario. you learn real quick who has actual RF out and who's been relying on the repeater to do the heavy lifting lol

the logging under stress thing is real too. i've been doing ARES stuff for going on 12 years now and i still have to consciously slow myself down when things get hectic at the EOC. some guys swear by the paper ICS 309 forms even if you're also doing digital logging, just as a backup and honestly i think the physical act of writing slows your brain down enough to actually capture what was said. might be worth trying at the next exercise

this is really encouraging to read, im still working on my technician and ive been thinking about ARES once i get licensed. do you need to have your general to participate or is tech enough to be useful? i dont want to show up and just be in the way