so i've been a tech for about 8 months now and just joined my county ARES group a few weeks ago. went to a couple meetings and everyone seems really nice but i keep hearing about activations and i honestly have no idea what that actually looks like in practice. like what are you physically doing, are you just sitting somewhere with your radio waiting for someone to ask you something? are you net control or just a relay station or what

i asked one of the guys at the meeting and he kind of explained it but i was still a little lost. he mentioned ICS and i've done the IS-100 and 200 online courses which i think i was supposed to do anyway but i still feel like i wont really understand it until i actually do one. is there a way to kind of prepare beyond just the drills they do? we had a simulated emergency test last fall but i missed it because of work stuff

anyway not trying to overthink this just want to feel less useless when something actually happens

totally get that feeling, i remember my first real activation (windstorm that knocked out power to a chunk of the county) and i showed up to the EOC with my go-bag and basically just waited for someone to tell me what to do for the first hour. which is actually fine - the served agency folks are coordinating a lot of stuff and they'll come find you when they need a message sent or they need someone at a shelter

the main thing i'd say is get comfortable with your local repeater and the simplex frequencies your group uses, and make sure you actually know how to do formal net check-ins properly because that stuff matters more than people think when things get busy. also the ICS stuff you did does help, especially understanding why you only talk to your immediate supervisor and not just calling whoever you feel like. chain of comm is real when things are hectic

dont stress about feeling useless at first. you learn by doing and your EC knows you're new, just be reliable and show up when you say you will and they'll give you more to do over time

yeah the SET is really the best practice you can get before an actual event so try not to miss the next one. our group does one every year and they really do try to simulate realistic message traffic and stuff, last year we had people at three different sites passing health-and-welfare traffic back to the EOC and it actually felt pretty close to what i imagine a real activation feels like

one thing nobody told me when i started - bring food and water and something to sit on if you might be deployed somewhere other than the EOC. sounds obvious but i showed up to a Red Cross shelter once with nothing and it was a long afternoon