so i finally passed my tech exam after studying for about 3 weeks and honestly i was way more nervous about keying up for the first time than i was about the actual test. i have a baofeng uv-5r that my cousin lent me and i found the local repeater frequency and just kind of sat there for like 20 minutes before i said anything

finally just said my call sign and that i was a new ham looking for a contact and this older guy came back to me right away, walked me through everything super patiently. we talked for maybe 10 minutes about where i lived and how long i'd been studying. it was nothing fancy but i was shaking the whole time for some reason. anyway just wanted to introduce myself, im KD9 something something i always forget the last two letters lol

haha the shaking thing is real, i remember my first QSO i literally forgot my own callsign for a second and just said uh... uh... before it came back to me. the guy on the other end thought it was hilarious. you'll get used to it fast, after like 5 or 6 contacts it starts feeling normal. welcome to the hobby, the baofeng is fine to start on just dont expect miracles from it on weak signals

congrats on passing and getting that first contact done. the nervous part fades pretty quick. once you get comfortable on the local repeater you might wanna look into getting your general so you can get on HF, thats where things really open up. talking to someone across the country or overseas on a modest setup never really gets old even after doing it for years. anyway welcome aboard