so i finally got activated for a real event last weekend, been doing the training nets and monthly meetings for about 8 months now and the county emergency manager requested ARES support for a big outdoor festival, something like 12,000 attendees over two days. our EC had us set up a communications net linking the medical tent, main stage, parking, and the EOC back at the fairgrounds office.

i was assigned to the medical tent which honestly was pretty quiet most of the time, handled a few welfare check relays and one actual medical assist relay to EMS dispatch. the net control guy did a great job keeping traffic moving and we used simplex on the designated tactical frequency for most of it with the linked repeater as backup if things got hairy.

my question is more about documentation, like after the event i filled out my ICS 309 but i wasnt totally sure what counts as a message vs just a check-in or routine net traffic. my EC was kind of rushed during debrief and i didnt get a chance to ask. anybody else dealt with this or have a feel for how strict your served agencies are about that stuff?

congrats on your first activation, those festival events are actually really good training because you get real traffic without it being a life or death situation, good way to get your feet wet.

on the ICS 309 thing, from what i've seen most served agencies want you to log anything that was directed traffic, so if someone passed you a message to relay, that counts. routine check-ins and just acknowledging you're on frequency probably dont need to go in there as individual entries but your EC might have a specific way they want it done that's different from what our group does. honestly the best thing is to just ask him when he's not in the middle of something, every ARES group kind of does it slightly different depending on what their county EM wants to see. some are super strict about it and some are pretty relaxed as long as you can reconstruct the timeline if they ever need it.

the main thing is you kept a contemporaneous log during the event right, like wrote it down as it happened? that makes filling in the forms after way easier and if there's ever a question about what was said you have it. good job getting out there and doing it, a lot of people sit on the sidelines for way too long.

yeah the 309 documentation stuff confused me too when i first started. i just log everything honestly, takes more time but then i dont have to second guess what to include. better to have too much than explain why something wasnt recorded i figure.