For those who don't know the lingo...
HOT reserve or Ready Reserve is where you go to the airport and wait around for scheduling to give you a trip. You may or may not fly. Times are either 5am-3pm or 2pm-midnight. If yoiu are on reserve sitting at home then scheduling can call you up and tell you that you are on Ready Reserve...And they will start the 10hrs when you get there. Your duty day cannot exceed 14 scheduled hours.
PSA does not give credit for Ready Reserve. Reserves get paid 72hrs/month pretty much regardless of what you do. You can fly 69hrs and spend the rest of your time on Ready Reserve and not get paid anything additional.
Most airlines give a credit for sitting HOT Reserve. ie: TSA/MESA/Express Jet to name a few. PSA is not one of those. And PSA's 10 hrs is the longest.
Same goes for regular reserve. PSA has a 1.5hr callout for regular reserve. Once scheduling calls you, you have 1.5hrs to get to the gate of your flight. 1hr if you are based in TYS.
CLT is becoming a concern because it takes at least 30min to get from the parking lot to the crew room. That's if you time the busses right. SO you have 1 hour to S/S/S and get to the airport. Not a lot of time.
If you do not get called while you are on regular reserve then you credit ZERO. You are on call for free. Although you do get your 72hrs of pay even if you fly ZERO hrs. (Not likely).
The hard part at PSA is the early first day reserves. 5am start (4am TYS). And the late finishes on Day 5. Could be as late as midnight.
If your day finished past 2am (Last day) then you get 6hrs of pay above 72hrs. This may happen 2 times a year.
Reserve schedules at PSA are 5 on 2 off 5 on 2 off 5 on 3 off 5 on 3 off. Or a combo of those. You will work 20 days/month. 10 off. If you have a week of vacation then you will get 13-14 days off total for that month. Vacations run Sunday thru Saturday.
Pay for first year F/O's is approx $20,736 not including per diem. You may get $4000 per diem the first year. Count on spending at least half that on food for the road.
My advice would be to take the regional job that is closest to home. You will need the support of your family and friends. But there are good regionals that maybe worth commuting for. It's your choice. You've been warned.