so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and i finally worked up the nerve to check into the local 2m net on tuesday nights. went fine mostly but im still not totally sure when youre supposed to just listen vs actually checking in and participating. like is it rude to check in and then not have anything to say when the NCS calls on you? i said my call and just said "no traffic, nothing further" and it felt a little awkward but the net control guy was totally nice about it.

also one thing i keep seeing is people who wait until almost the end of the net to check in and i cant tell if thats intentional or they just forgot. does it matter when you check in timingwise? i dont want to be doing something wrong without knowing it

honestly you did exactly the right thing. saying no traffic nothing further is completely normal and most net controls appreciate it because it keeps things moving. you dont need to have a long ragchew ready every time you check in, the whole point of a lot of these nets is just to make sure people know how to use the repeater and that the repeater is functioning. some guys check in every single week and never say more than their call and signal report and nobody thinks anything of it.

as for timing, some people do check in late intentionally if they know the net runs long and they want to catch the tail end, others just get home late from work or whatever. the main etiquette thing is just dont check in after the net control has already closed the net, that gets a little awkward. but anywhere in the middle youre fine. sounds like you handled yourself well, dont overthink it.

same boat as you like 6 months ago lol. i was terrified to key up for the first time. the thing that helped me was just listening to the same net for like 3 or 4 weeks before i ever checked in so i knew the flow of how they did things. every net is a little different too, some are real formal with phonetics and signal reports every time and some are super casual. if youre ever unsure just listen to how other people are doing it and copy that. nobody expects new folks to be perfect right away