so i passed my technician exam last thursday after studying for like 3 weeks and i was pretty nervous to actually key up the mic but today i just went for it on the 147.315 repeater in my area and someone came back to me right away which honestly caught me off guard lol. guy named Bill (W4something i didnt catch the suffix) talked to me for like 10 minutes asking where i was from and what radio i had. i just have a baofeng uv-5r for now which i know isnt fancy but it worked fine. anyway just wanted to share because it felt like a bigger deal than i expected it to. planning to eventually get on HF once i upgrade to general but for now the local repeater stuff is keeping me busy

congrats man, that first qso feeling is real. i remember being so nervous i forgot to say my callsign at the end and the other guy had to remind me haha. dont worry about the baofeng thing either, everyone starts somewhere and for local vhf work it does the job fine. just get familiar with the repeater etiquette and youll be good. whats your callsign?

welcome to the hobby. yeah HF is a whole different world when you get there, way more addicting imo. i spent like two months just on 40m after i got my general and barely slept some nights chasing dx. anyway good on you for just keying up, a lot of new hams buy a radio and then never actually transmit for months because theyre scared of doing something wrong