so i finally participated in my first SET (simulated emergency test) after being in ARES for about eight months and man there is a lot more going on than i expected. i guess i figured it would be kind of like a net but with more paperwork, but it was way more involved than that.

our scenario was a flood situation where we had to assume all normal comms infrastructure was down and we needed to relay health and welfare traffic between the EOC and a couple of shelter sites. the thing that really caught me off guard was how fast message traffic piles up when youre trying to keep track of ICS forms, log everything, and actually copy messages at the same time. i kept losing my place and had to ask for repeats which felt embarrassing but i think thats kind of the point of doing these exercises right - find out where the gaps are before a real event.

one thing that really stuck with me was how much we depended on net discipline. when people started freelancing on frequency it got messy really quick. also learned that battery math matters way more than i thought - we had one station go QRT about two hours in because they hadnt fully charged their backup and hadnt checked their draw ahead of time. easy fix but it would have been a real problem in an actual deployment.

anyone else done these and have tips for staying organized when the traffic volume picks up? im thinking about making some kind of quick reference card for myself but not sure what to put on it

yeah the message traffic thing gets real overwhelming real fast, been there. what helped me was keeping a simple scratch pad separate from my actual log just to track what messages are pending, in progress, or sent. sounds obvious but when youre also trying to monitor the frequency and copy the next message it makes a big difference having that visual reminder in front of you.

the battery thing is such a common lesson at these exercises honestly. we had the same issue at our county drill a couple years back and after that our EC made pre-deployment checklists mandatory. not the most glamorous part of emcomm but its the kind of thing that actually saves you in the field. for your quick reference card id put your net control contact info, your ICS-213 format reminders, and honestly just a little battery status reminder at the top. simple stuff but you wont forget to check it if its right there.

keep doing the SETs, the first couple feel chaotic but it really does click eventually

the net discipline thing is so real. i was at a public service event once, not even a full emergency activation, just a bike race, and the amount of people who would just kerchunk the repeater mid-traffic because they had something to say was kind of stunning. people forget that emcomm is basically a different mode of operating than just ragchewing on a local repeater.

i dont do a ton of ARES stuff but i try to at least do the national SET every year just to stay in practice. one thing i noticed is that operators who do contesting tend to adapt pretty quick to the high-traffic pace, something about being used to copying calls fast i guess. anyway sounds like you got a lot out of it which is really the whole point