ok I am new to smoking just like you but I too asked a good friend that has been doing this professionally for years and used this forum. My chicken turned out awesome!
I marinated the chicken in Italian dressing for 4-6 hours. Place chicken in bowl and drown in Italian dressing and cover, rotate a few times. After 5 hours I was chomping at the bit to get started... I wiped of all dressing and patted dry and rubbed the chicken with a concoction of seasonings premixed in a bowl. I used a little bit of brown sugar, red season salt, cumin, garlic powder, white pepper, rubbed sage and few others from my cabinet. I let that sit for about an hour while I warmed up my smoker to about 250. I stuffed the cavity of the chicken with whole garlic cloves, peeled and crushed, cut up onions and a mix of fresh poultry herbs bought from wal-mart, it contained basil, rosemary and few others. I used a charcoal/hickory wood mix to smoke.
It took a little over 4 hours to bring the internal temperature to 170, 165 is reccommended but I like my poultry a little on the done side to ensure it is done! It came out juicy and wonderful.
I left the skin on and trimmed up some of the excess around the neck and butt and smoked breast side up. I used a
turkey fryer thermometer as I dont trust the one that came with my smoker to get a temp on the smoke area of the smoker. I also used a thermometer I purchased from rite aid for about $5 that I stabbed into the meat portion of the breast and left there for the duration of the smoke. See my profile for pics.
I have a huge list of upgrades I will slowly do but funds are scarce and I made do with what I had.
Enjoy and good luck!
Troy