so ive been part of our local ARES group for about 8 months now, been going to the monthly nets and the occasional training exercise but this weekend is apparently a real activation — county OEM asked us to provide comms support for a pretty big search and rescue operation out in the hills east of town. nothing life or death hopefully but its real and not a drill and i guess thats whats getting in my head a little.

my EC has been great about walking people through what to expect but i guess i just wanted to hear from anyone whos done their first real activation and what it actually felt like in the moment. like do you just... default to your training or does everything kind of fly out of your head when theres actual pressure? i've been studying ICS stuff, i know my phonetic alphabet cold, i have my go bag ready. i think im ready. i just dont know if i feel ready if that makes sense.

also kind of a practical question — when you're logging traffic during an activation do most groups use paper logs or is there software people use in the field? our group hasnt been super clear on that and i dont want to show up using the wrong thing.

Man I remember my first one, county flood response back in maybe 2019. Honestly the thing that surprised me most was how much waiting there is. You spend a lot of time just sitting at your assigned position making sure the net control knows you're there, and then suddenly things get busy for 20 minutes and then quiet again. The training really does kick in though — when traffic starts moving you kind of just go into the mode and it works. The nerves mostly went away once I had my first actual message to pass.

On the logging question, most groups I've worked with default to paper for field positions just because laptops die and software crashes and you dont want to be fumbling with a frozen screen when someones relaying coordinates. Some net controls use winlink or a spreadsheet but at the position level its usually a standard ICS 309 on a clipboard. Just bring a good pen and a backup pen, sounds dumb but ive been caught without one and it's embarrassing.

the nervous feeling is completely normal and honestly a good sign that you're taking it seriously. ive seen people show up to activations totally overconfident and those are usually the ones who freeze or go off procedure. the folks who are a little anxious tend to listen better and follow net discipline which is honestly most of what the job is anyway.

one thing nobody told me before my first activation was to eat something before you go and bring water and snacks because you might be out there longer than you think and it's really hard to copy traffic when your blood sugar is tanking. super unglamorous advice but seriously. good luck this weekend, sounds like your EC has set you up well.