so i've been lurking on here for like 6 months reading everything and watching youtube videos and i finally just bit the bullet and took my technician exam last saturday. passed with a 33/35 which honestly surprised me because i blanked on a couple of the electrical questions. anyway im KD9something, still waiting for it to show up in the ULS but my VE gave me a temporary reference number so i can operate now technically.

my first actual QSO was kind of a disaster lol. i keyed up on the local 2m repeater and completely forgot to say my callsign at the end, the control op had to remind me. then the second time i forgot to wait for the courtesy tone and stepped on someone. so yeah its going great. but i did manage to have a real actual conversation with a guy about 40 miles away and it was pretty cool even if it was just about the weather.

anyway just wanted to introduce myself, probably gonna ask a lot of dumb questions on here so sorry in advance

welcome to the hobby, dont worry about stepping on people on the repeater everyone does it when they start out. the courtesy tone thing trips up literally everyone. just keep getting on the air and it becomes second nature pretty fast. whats your HT situation, are you running a baofeng or did you go with something else to start

ha i did the exact same thing on my first transmission, totally blanked on my callsign and just said "uh over" like i was on a walkie talkie or something. the guy on the other end was super patient about it though. congrats on passing, 33/35 is solid especially if you didnt have any background in electronics. it gets way less awkward after the first few times i promise