so i finally passed my tech exam after studying for about 6 weeks and honestly i was kind of terrified to actually key up for the first time. sat there for like 20 minutes just listening to the local repeater before i finally just did it. said my callsign and some guy came back to me right away and we had a solid 10 minute chat, turns out he was in texas running some kind of linked repeater system and could hear me fine. i dont even fully understand how that works yet but it was pretty cool. anyway just wanted to share because i wasnt sure id ever actually work up the nerve to transmit. KD8 something now officially lol

haha that first transmission is always the hardest part, i remember sitting on the repeater for probably two weeks before i said anything. once you do it once though its no big deal. congrats on the license and welcome to the hobby, youll be addicted before you know it. linked repeaters are pretty neat once you wrap your head around em, basically connects a bunch of repeaters together so you can talk way further than youd expect on VHF

welcome. i just got my general last month so im not far ahead of you. my first qso was a disaster, i forgot to give my callsign at the end and the guy had to ask me twice. we all start somewhere i guess