so ive been part of our local ARES group for about 8 months now, been going to the monthly nets and did the ICS-100 and ICS-200 courses online like they asked. this weekend theres an actual activation for a half marathon the county is putting on and our EC asked if i wanted to help cover one of the water station checkpoints.

i said yes obviously but now im second guessing myself a little. like i know the basics, im holding an HT on the simplex frequency and just relaying runner bib numbers and any medical stuff back to net control. seems simple enough but i dunno, when its real i always get nervous i'll freeze up or mess up my callsign or something dumb like that.

anyone else feel this way before their first real deployment? any tips from people who have done these community event things before? also my EC mentioned something about a shadow shift, is that where i just follow someone experienced around first or is it something different in ARES context

oh man i remember feeling exactly like this before my first one, it was a bike race and i was convinced i was gonna say my callsign wrong in front of everyone on the net lol. honestly once you get on the air and do the first couple transmissions it just clicks and you stop overthinking it. the nice thing about these community events is the pace is pretty slow and net control is usually super patient with everyone.

yeah shadow shift in ARES basically means what you think, you tag along with someone who has done it before and mostly just observe, maybe key up once or twice. some groups do it differently though so just ask your EC directly what they expect from you. the main thing is just show up on time with a charged radio and a spare battery if you have one, write down the frequencies and any tactical call signs on a little card you can tape to the back of your HT, that helps a lot when you go blank under pressure. you'll do fine, these events are genuinely low stakes and good practice

dont sweat it too much. i've been doing ARES stuff for like 12 years and i still double check my notes before a net. the ICS training you did is honestly more than a lot of people show up with. just listen more than you talk and youll be alright. if you miss something or fumble a transmission just say say again or ask net control to repeat, nobody cares, thats what the protocol is there for.