so last tuesday i finally worked up the nerve to check into our local 2m monday night net (yes i know it was tuesday, i missed monday and figured id try anyway since they sometimes do a late session). ive had my technician license for like 4 months now and mostly just listened. anyway when the net control called for check-ins i gave my callsign and then just... blanked. completely forgot what i was supposed to say after that. i think i said my name and then just said "thats all" which probably sounded weird.

net control was super nice about it and moved on but i felt pretty embarrassed. whats the usual format people use when checking in? like do you always give signal report, location, traffic, all that? and how do you know what the specific net expects vs like general practice? i dont want to be the guy who holds things up next time.

oh man totally been there, honestly freezing up your first few check-ins is basically a rite of passage. dont sweat it at all. the net control guy has heard everything, trust me.

most local nets just want callsign, name, and whether you have traffic or anything for the net. some ask for location especially if its a wide coverage repeater and they like knowing where signals are coming from. the best thing to do is just listen to a few other check-ins before yours comes around and kind of mirror what everyone else does. every net has its own little culture and theyll usually announce at the start what format they want anyway, you just gotta train yourself to actually listen for that part instead of rehearsing what youre gonna say in your head the whole time haha.

after a few weeks it just becomes automatic, callsign, name, location, no traffic, and youre done in about 5 seconds.

The net I help control on Thursday nights we actually say at the top of each session exactly what we want from check-ins, precisely because new folks don't always know. If your net isn't doing that it might be worth mentioning to whoever runs it, a lot of NCS ops just assume everyone already knows the format which isn't really fair to newcomers.

Also for what it's worth, "that's all" is perfectly acceptable as a closing, some nets specifically ask for it. So you probably didn't sound as out of place as you thought.