ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (technician, working on my general) and i finally got up the nerve to check into a local 2m net last tuesday. the net control called for check-ins and i waited for a pause and just said my callsign. the net control came back to me and everything seemed fine but i honestly have no idea if i did it the right way or not. like do you just say your callsign once? do you say your name and location too? nobody told me beforehand and i kind of just winged it.

also i saw something about a special event station on qrz this weekend, something to do with a lighthouse? and i have no idea how those work either. is it just like a regular contact or is there something special you have to do to get credit for it. theres apparently some kind of award involved but the page was kind of confusing. anyway any help appreciated, still figuring all this out

hey welcome to the hobby, youre doing fine honestly. for most local 2m voice nets you pretty much just say your callsign phonetically and wait — some nets also want your name and maybe signal report or location but the net control will usually ask if they want more. every net is a little different so just listen to how other people check in before your turn and copy what they do, that works 99% of the time.

the lighthouse thing is almost certainly the annual lighthouse weekend event, they run it every August. special event stations are basically just regular contacts except somebody somewhere went out and set up a station at a lighthouse (or whatever the event is) and they're handing out contacts to people. you log it like any other qso. the award side of it usually means you collect confirmations from a certain number of those stations, there's a website where you submit your log. just make the contact and get a qsl or lotw confirmation and you're set. honestly it's a lot of fun and there are usually a ton of stations active so the bands get pretty lively that weekend.

yeah what he said about just listening first, that saved me so much awkwardness when i was new. also some nets have a specific format they announce at the top, like the net control will say "check-ins please give your callsign name and location" so just pay attention to that part at the start. i missed it my first few times because i was so nervous about keying up that i wasnt actually listening lol