so i finally made it out to a local ARES meeting after meaning to go for like six months. been a ham for about two years now (general class) and kept seeing it mentioned on here and figured it was time. overall really cool experience, people were super welcoming and the EC seemed really knowledgeable.

but i came away with a few things im not sure about. they mentioned something about ICS and NIMS training being required before you can actually activate with them, and i guess there are specific FEMA online courses you have to do? IS-100, IS-200, something like that? i started looking it up when i got home but wasnt totally clear on which ones are actually mandatory vs just recommended for ARES specifically versus like if you want to work with the county emergency manager directly.

also they talked about a weekly net they run on the local repeater for check-ins and i guess that counts toward your "participation" for the year. does that actually matter much for activations or is it more of a formality to keep the roster active. my schedule is kind of unpredictable with work so im wondering how strict most groups are about that stuff.

anyway it was a good time. they had someone demo their go-kit setup which was pretty neat, had a yaesu FT-857 running off a battery with a rollup jpole. made me want to put something together of my own eventually.

welcome to the rabbit hole haha. yeah the ICS stuff is real, most ARES groups at minimum want IS-100 and IS-700 done before you show up to anything official, and if you want to work directly with served agencies a lot of them want IS-200 and IS-800 too. they're all free on the FEMA EMI website and honestly not that long, IS-100 took me maybe two hours on a slow afternoon. the certificates matter more than you'd think because some counties actually require them on file before they'll let you into an EOC.

as for the net check-ins, it really depends on the group. some ECs are pretty relaxed about it and just want to know you're still alive and interested, others track it more seriously especially when they're trying to figure out who to call during an actual activation. i'd just be upfront with your EC about your work schedule, most people are understanding about that. the ones who arent probably arent running a great group anyway.

the go-kit demo is always the best part of those meetings lol. i went down a huge rabbit hole building mine after my first meeting and ended up way overcomplicating it at first. if you do put one together id say start simple, just something that works reliably, before you start adding solar panels and fancy logging software and all that.

and yeah do the FEMA courses sooner rather than later, they're kind of tedious but you only have to do it once. i think i did mine over a couple evenings just knocking out one module at a time.