so i finally did it, been putting off studying for like two years and just buckled down and passed the tech exam last thursday. picked up a baofeng uv-5r to start just to get my feet wet and today i actually made contact with a guy about 40 miles away through the local repeater. i was so nervous i forgot to say my callsign at the end and he had to remind me lol. anyway just wanted to introduce myself i guess, im KD9 something i always forget the last two letters of my own callsign which is embarrassing. super excited to get into this hobby properly. thinking about upgrading to general soon so i can get on HF but thats a whole other thing

welcome to the hobby man, dont sweat forgetting your callsign at first, pretty much everyone does that. i fumbled mine for like the first month. the baofeng will do fine for getting started on the local repeaters just watch out for the audio on those things, sometimes they sound a bit tinny and people will ask you to speak up. once you get to HF its a totally different world, the first time i worked someone in europe on 20 meters with a wire antenna strung up in my backyard i was completely hooked. upgrade when you feel ready, the general test isnt too bad if you already did tech

ha i did the same thing with my callsign for weeks. still mess it up sometimes when im tired. congrats on passing tho, what repeater are you on?