Reserve is pretty good at DL. I bid reserve by choice. Most reserve days are long call, min 12 hr report. Vast majority of flying when called is between 20-30 hours before show. Short call is assigned only 1 day at a time, the day prior. Once you do 2 short calls for the month, they bypass you and move to other people until theyve done their 2. And yes, 3 hours is acceptable to sit at home for shortcall. First day of reserve you cant do anything before 10am. You want to fly, you can have first dibs on prior day open trils. If you pickup premium trips on days off, get paid above guarantee and they give you compensatory days off on you future reserve days. Some senior dudes are lucky and that for a whole month, its like working 16 days, get paid 160 hours. Other lucky dudes are senior enough to hardly ever see a jet.
I'm pretty junior, but when staffing is normal, I average 8 days away from home a month. Right now I've flown 2 legs in 2 months. Ebbs and flows with staffing, but it can be a pretty nice gig. I'm also a commuter.