so i finally got activated for a real ARES deployment last weekend, been a member of our local group for about 8 months now and done maybe 4 or 5 training nets but this was the first actual thing where they needed us out in the field. county emergency manager requested us for a pretty bad storm situation, some flooding in the low areas and they had a shelter set up at the high school.

i was assigned to the shelter as the primary station, just running HF packet and voice check-ins back to the EOC every hour. nothing super complicated but man it felt different than any drill. like the EC was actually counting on the info getting through and there were real people sitting in cots behind me. ran my ic-7300 off a battery bank i brought and everything held fine for about 14 hours.

anyway just wanted to share because i know some folks here have been on the fence about joining their local ARES group. the training stuff can feel a little repetitive but when it actually matters its a completely different headspace. glad i stuck with it even when the nets felt kind of tedious

that's a great first deployment story, congrats on getting through it. 14 hours on battery is solid, what was your draw like with the 7300? i always worry about underestimating consumption when i'm doing extended ops at a shelter. our group uses mostly VHF for shelter-to-EOC links but ive been pushing for some HF redundancy for a while now, some of our served agencies are finally warming up to the idea.

the mindset shift you described is real. drills are drills and everyone knows it even if they're trying hard. when theres an actual activation something just clicks differently. good on you for sticking through the slower training periods, a lot of newer folks drift away after a few months if they don't see action pretty quick.

im kind of in the same boat as you were before this, been going to the monthly ARES meetings and doing the weekly net but havent been activated yet. didnt realize you could run packet from the shelter like that, i thought most of the shelter work was just voice. is that something your EC specifically set up or is it more standard than i think? maybe i should ask about getting my winlink stuff dialed in before i get called up