Nicole Davis

yeah this is really common and honestly if your first drill felt chaotic it probably means it was a good drill. the ones where everything goes smoothly usually just mean the scenario wasnt hard enough or people were cutting corners without anyone noticing.
the simplex coverage thing is a real problem for a lot of groups. we had the same issue years back and what actually helped was doing a dedicated simplex mapping day where we just drove around the county with HTs and made notes about who could hear who from where. took a saturday but we ended up with a rough coverage map that we actually laminated and put in the go kits. its not perfect but it gives people a starting point when the repeater is gone.
on the message format stuff -- i've found that people resist it because it feels slow and awkward and a little silly when you're standing next to someone in a parking lot. the trick is making sure everyone understands WHY the format exists, which is really about making sure the message survives getting relayed through three or four people without getting garbled. once operators get that part it tends to stick better. still takes repetition though, there's no shortcut really.

congrats on the first one, 12 QSOs is totally solid especially on a first activation. honestly some of my early ones i was just happy to hit 10 and get out of there before the rain hit lol
for logging a lot of people use the HAMRS app, it's free and designed pretty much exactly for POTA. syncs up to the POTA website pretty painlessly when you get home. i used paper for my first few activations and it works fine but HAMRS makes the upload way easier. some folks use Log4OM or just a spreadsheet but HAMRS is probably the most common thing you'll see people mention
for spotting yourself — you can self-spot through the POTA website or app once you're set up and on frequency. there's also the pota.app spots page that hunters watch constantly. a lot of activators will post on their local club facebook or the POTA facebook group the day before to drum up hunters too. once you self-spot you'll usually start getting a small pileup pretty quick, people are almost always listening for new spots to come in

so ive been doing the local 2m club net on monday nights for a while now and its fine but honestly gets a little repetitive, same 6 people checking in every week. started poking around for other nets to join just to hear more activity and practice my HF operating a bit more.
found a couple 40m nets that run tuesday evenings around 7-8pm local but i dont always catch them because the skip is weird or im just late getting to the shack. wondering if anyone here has nets they really like and check in to regularly, doesnt matter what band really. also curious about those special event stations, i saw something about a lighthouse weekend coming up and have no idea how that works or if you just call them like any other station.
still relatively new so any pointers appreciated, been licensed about 8 months now

so i finally got activated for real last weekend, not just a drill. there was bad flooding about 30 miles east of here and the county EOC requested ARES support for about 18 hours. ive been a member for almost two years and done maybe 6 or 7 training exercises but nothing had ever gone live before so i wasnt totally sure how it would actually feel.
honestly the biggest thing i noticed was how different the pace is compared to drills. during drills everyone kind of knows its not real and theres this low-key relaxed vibe even when we're pretending to be serious. but when the net control at the EOC was passing actual shelter locations and real headcounts it just felt different. i was way more focused and also weirdly more calm than i expected, like the training actually kicked in.
one thing that tripped me up was my logging. i use whatever the standard ICS 214 form is but i hadnt really practiced filling it out fast under actual pressure and i fell behind a couple times. nothing major but my EC noticed and we talked about it after. also had a brief issue with my simplex frequency not being heard at one of the outlying sites but we worked around it pretty quick.
anyway just wanted to share because i remember reading posts like this when i was newer and wondering what a real activation would be like. if youre in ARES and havent been activated yet, the drills really do matter even when they feel repetitive.

im pretty new too so take this for what its worth but i started using pskreporter alongside those and it helped me understand propagation a lot better, like you can actually see who is hearing who in real time which kind of tells you whether a path is even open before you go chasing a spot. not sure if thats helpful for your exact question but it changed how i think about all of it

I had almost the exact same experience on my first activation, right down to the UTC time issue. What I do now is just keep my phone showing UTC the whole time I'm operating, like literally tape a piece of paper over the local time display so I stop glancing at the wrong thing out of habit. Sounds dumb but it works for me.
Also I found that 20m in the late morning is usually where I can rack up QSOs fastest, especially if youre in the eastern US. The European chasers are really active and they love WWFF references. Once you get a decent pile going it snowballs pretty quickly and 44 stops feeling like this huge mountain.

oh man i remember that exact feeling, don't worry about it at all. honestly the best thing i can tell you is that every net runs a little differently so even experienced guys mess up the flow when they check into an unfamiliar one. most net controls are pretty patient with newer hams, they've seen it a million times.
generally when NCS calls for check-ins you just give your callsign phonetically, nothing else, and wait for them to come back to you. then when they acknowledge you they might ask for your name and location or whatever info that particular net collects. the roundtable thing is trickier — usually whoever just finished talking throws it to the next person by name or call, so you listen for your call and then go. if nobody throws it to you specifically you kind of have to wait for a pause and then just say your call to let them know you want in.
as for resources, the ARRL has some net operating guides but honestly just keep checking in. after 3 or 4 times on the same net you'll have the rhythm down. most people there want you to succeed.