so i finally got activated for a real event last weekend, not just a drill. county had a pretty bad storm system come through thursday night and our EC called everyone up around 10pm. i've been in ARES for about eight months now and done maybe four or five exercises but this was the first time it actually counted for something real.

honestly i was kind of nervous getting to the EOC. i kept second guessing my go-bag setup and wondering if i had everything. ended up being fine, had my 2m HT, the spare batteries, my log sheets, all of it. we were mostly doing welfare traffic and relaying info between the EOC and a couple of the shelter sites that had spotty cell coverage. nothing fancy, just solid VHF work for about six hours.

the thing that surprised me was how much the non-ham emergency management people actually relied on us. like they genuinely needed the comms link and weren't just tolerating us being there. that felt really good. one of the shelter coordinators came over and specifically thanked our net control guy by name at the end of the shift.

anyway if anyone here is sitting on the fence about joining ARES or RACES or doing more than just paying dues, i'd say just go for it. the training exercises feel kind of fake sometimes but when the real thing happens you're real glad you did them.

that's awesome to hear, congrats on your first real activation. the welfare traffic piece is so underrated - people always want to talk about the exciting stuff but honestly just keeping communication flowing between shelter staff and the EOC is where we earn our keep most of the time.

i've been doing ARES stuff for about 12 years now and the activations that felt most meaningful were usually the boring ones where we just kept things humming along quietly. the fancy digital stuff and all that is great for exercises but when things are actually bad outside sometimes a reliable 2m voice net is just what works.

also totally agree about the go-bag anxiety. i still do a mental checklist every time even though ive packed the same bag probably 30 times. just the way it is i think.

this is making me want to actually look into joining our local ARES group. ive had my general for almost a year and mostly just do some casual HF stuff on weekends but i keep thinking i should do something more with it. do you have to have a certain license class or is technician enough to get involved? i assume most of the VHF/UHF work would be fine but wasnt sure if there were other requirements.