so i passed my technician exam on tuesday and my callsign showed up in the FCC database like two days later which i wasnt expecting that fast honestly. anyway i figured id just try the local repeater and see what happened. keyed up, said my call and that i was a new ham looking for a contact and within maybe 30 seconds some guy came back to me. we talked for like 20 minutes about antennas and he gave me a ton of advice about getting on HF eventually. i was kind of nervous the whole time but it went fine. my signal report was 5 and 9 which i guess is good? still learning what all that means. the radio is just a baofeng uv-5r that i borrowed from a friend until i figure out if this is gonna stick for me but it worked fine for the repeater. pretty stoked about the whole thing. anyone else remember their first contact being kind of nerve wracking

oh man yeah my first QSO i literally wrote out what i was going to say beforehand lol. still stumbled over it. 5 and 9 is the best signal report you can get so yeah thats good, means you were coming in loud and clear. the baofeng will do you fine for getting started on 2m and 70cm. once you catch the bug youll want to get your general and get on HF, thats where things get really interesting. welcome to the hobby

yeah i remeber my first time keying up on a repeater i sat there for like ten minutes with my thumb hovering over the ptt button just kind of psyching myself up. its dumb but it felt like a big deal at the time. congrats on the ticket, stick with it