so i finally did it after like two years of telling myself i was gonna study for the tech exam. passed it last tuesday with a 94% which i was pretty happy about. got my callsign assigned friday and spent the weekend just listening on the local 2m repeater trying to figure out the vibe before i keyed up.

today i just went for it, said my callsign and that i was new and a guy named Dave came back to me immediately and we talked for maybe 15 minutes about nothing in particular, his antenna setup and what radio i was using. it was kind of surreal honestly. like i knew the theory but actually doing it felt totally different. anyway just wanted to post somewhere cause nobody in my family understands why im excited about this

ha that feeling of the first qso never really goes away, i remember mine was on a handheld at like 5 watts and i was standing in my backyard in january freezing because i thought i needed to be outside for some reason. congrats on the 94 too thats a solid score. the repeater guys are usually pretty welcoming to new folks, stick around and youll probably end up as one of the regulars before you know it

welcome to the hobby. same thing happened to me, family had no idea why i was so pumped about talking to a stranger on a radio when i have a phone in my pocket lol. its hard to explain. what radio did you end up getting? im still on a baofeng myself but thinking about upgrading at some point