so i passed my general about 8 months ago and joined our county ARES group maybe 4 months back. been showing up to the monthly nets and did one tabletop exercise but this weekend theres an actual activation for a local marathon event and they want me to help staff one of the aid station positions.

i guess my question is... what does that actually look like day of? like do i just sit there with my HT and wait for someone to call me? the EC gave us a briefing document but it was kind of a lot to absorb and i dont want to look like an idiot out there. i know the basics of keeping a log and passing traffic but ive never done it in an actual deployment situation. any tips from folks whove done this kind of thing would be really appreciated

Marathon events are honestly a great first activation because theyre pretty low stress compared to actual emergency deployments. youll mostly be relaying runner counts and medical status reports between aid stations and net control. the traffic is pretty formulaic once you get going.

biggest thing i tell new folks is dont be afraid of dead air. if nothing is happening at your station, nothing is happening, you dont have to fill the frequency. just check in when theyre doing roll call, answer when net control calls you, and if something happens at your aid station you need to report just take a breath and say it clearly. log everything with a timestamp even if it seems trivial, start time, end time, any messages passed, all of it. your EC will thank you when its time to write the after action report.

also bring snacks and a chair if you can, those aid station shifts can run longer than you think and standing for 5 hours gets old fast

yeah what he said. i remember my first one of these and i was way overthinking it. the served agency people are usually just happy someone showed up with a radio. half the time youre literally just there as backup in case the cell networks get congested and they cant reach each other by phone.

one thing that tripped me up early on was trying to use formal message format for everything when really for a marathon they mostly just want plain language updates. ask your EC beforehand what format they prefer so you dont have to guess in the moment. have fun with it, these public service events are a good way to get reps in before anything real comes along