so ive been licensed about 4 months now (general) and i keep hearing people talk about nets but i honestly still dont fully understand the whole thing. like i know theres a net control and you check in but what actually happens after that? do you just say your callsign and thats it, or do they actually talk to you? ive been lurking on 7.250 and a few 2m repeater nets locally but i get nervous to jump in because i dont want to mess up the flow or say something wrong.

also someone at my club mentioned there are special event stations during holidays and stuff — are those related to nets or completely separate? i looked up W1AW and saw they have a schedule but the page was kind of confusing to me. just trying to figure out where to start honestly, any nudge in the right direction would help

nets are pretty low pressure once you do it a couple times honestly. most of the time you just wait for net control to call for check-ins, then when there's a pause you give your callsign phonetically and wait. they'll acknowledge you, maybe ask if you have traffic or just say welcome and move on. some nets are just a roll call and done in 10 minutes, others like traffic nets or ARES nets have actual business to conduct but even then you mostly just listen unless you have something specific.

the special event stations are kind of a separate thing — those are usually set up for a specific occasion like an anniversary or a historical site and they have their own callsigns like W1B or whatever. you can work them and sometimes get a certificate or QSL card. W1AW does operate on a schedule yeah, that one's Hiram Percy Maxim's old callsign kept alive by the ARRL. worth checking in on just to hear good clean code if nothing else. but don't let any of that overwhelm you — just find a friendly local 2m net and jump in, worst case you stumble over your callsign and everyone's been there

i was in the exact same spot like 6 months ago lol. what helped me was finding a net that specifically says its a beginner or training net because net control on those is super patient and basically walks you through it. theres one on my local repeater every tuesday and the first time i checked in my heart was pounding for no reason, but the net control guy just said welcome and that was that. now i do it without even thinking about it.

special event stations are fun once you get a few contacts under your belt — theres usually a pile up and it moves fast so maybe not the first thing to try but definitely something to work toward