so i finally got activated for a real event last weekend, been doing ARES training for about 8 months now and honestly the nets and tabletop exercises only prepare you so much. we got called out to support the county EOC during the flooding situation up near the northern part of the county and it was... a lot different than i expected.

like the training nets we do every tuesday are pretty structured and calm obviously, but when youre actually sitting in the EOC and the served agency folks are stressed out and asking for traffic to get passed and you have marginal conditions on the 2m repeater it just feels different. my hands were actually a little shaky the first hour or so which was embarrassing. ended up being fine but i kept second-guessing myself on net control stuff.

for anyone whos been doing ARES a while — does that nervousness ever really go away? i felt pretty solid in the exercises but the real thing just had a different energy to it. also we had a couple operators who showed up without their go-bags basically ready and the EC had to scramble a bit which was kind of a mess. anyway glad i did it, just processing it all i guess.

that nervousness honestly never fully goes away for me and ive been doing emcomm stuff for close to 12 years now. i think it's actually a sign youre taking it seriously, the guys who show up completely relaxed and overconfident are usually the ones who make mistakes under pressure. you adapt though, after a few activations the muscle memory kicks in and the procedures just flow without you having to think as hard.

the go-bag thing is a real problem in a lot of ARES groups unfortunately. our EC made it a requirement that people actually do a go-bag check at one of the quarterly meetings, like physically open the bag and show youve got your basics covered. cut down on that kind of thing a lot. worth suggesting to your group if they dont already do it.

wow congrats on your first activation, thats pretty cool that you got a real one so quickly. im still just doing the weekly nets and havent been called out yet. was the HF side of things involved at all or was it mostly 2m? i keep reading about NVIS setups for when repeaters go down and im trying to figure out if i should be practicing more on 40m for that kind of thing.