so i've been a technician for about 8 months now and joined our county ARES group back in the spring mostly because the club president said it was a good way to get more operating time and meet people. went to the monthly nets, did the ICS-100 and 200 online courses like they asked, figured that was basically it for a while.

then last month we had actual flooding in the county and our EC called an activation. i honestly wasnt sure what to expect at all - like i knew the theory of what ARES does but actually showing up at the EOC with my HT and a notepad felt kind of overwhelming at first. there were maybe 6 or 7 of us and the more experienced guys seemed to just... know what to do already.

ended up spending about 4 hours passing traffic between the EOC and a shelter that had lost its phone connectivity. nothing glamorous but it felt real in a way that just doing nets never does. anyway i guess my question is - for people who do this regularly, how long did it take before activations felt comfortable rather than chaotic? and is there anything specific i should be practicing or studying that actually helps when things are live

That feeling you're describing after your first real activation - yeah that's completely normal and honestly if you weren't a little overwhelmed something would be wrong. I remember my first one was a bad winter storm back in maybe 2011 and I basically just tried to stay out of the way of the people who knew what they were doing while still being useful. That itself is kind of a skill.

The thing that helped me most wasn't any specific course honestly. It was just showing up to every drill and exercise i could find, including the SET in the fall which a lot of people skip because it feels like homework. After you've done the same check-in procedures and message handling formats enough times they stop feeling like procedures and just become what you do. ICS-213 forms stopped feeling weird to me after about the third activation.

Also - and this is something nobody told me early on - talk to your EC about what roles they actually need filled. A lot of newer folks assume they have to be a net control right away but sometimes just being reliable at a relay point or a shelter is exactly what the group needs. That's where I got comfortable before I ever tried running a net.

passing traffic at an actual shelter during flooding is not nothing, thats real emcomm work right there. some guys in my group have been in ARES for years and never had an activation that wasnt a drill so you're already ahead of a lot of people just from that experience.

one thing i'd say - get AREDN on your radar if your group uses any kind of digital infrastructure. not essential but it comes up more and more at the EOC level. or even just get comfortable with Winlink because a lot of served agencies are starting to expect that alongside voice.