hey everyone, so i finally did it after procrastinating for like two years lol. passed the technician exam yesterday at the library, scored 33/35 which i was pretty happy with. been lurking on this forum for a while and figured id actually make an account now that im officially licensed. still waiting on the FCC to post my callsign in the database so ive just been sitting here refreshing the ULS lookup every hour like a crazy person.

my buddy got me into this hobby, he's been a ham for about 6 years and has been bugging me to get licensed forever. he already offered to let me use his old Baofeng to start on local repeaters once my call comes through. i know i know, everyone has opinions about Baofengs, but hey its free so im not complaining. anyway just wanted to say hi and see if anyone remembers what it felt like waiting for that first callsign to show up

congrats man, that waiting period is brutal, i think mine took about 3 days to show up and i checked constantly. once it posts just jump on a local repeater and say hi, most people are friendly and will ragchew with a new call. dont be nervous about keying up, worst that happens is nobody responds and you try again later. the baofeng will be fine to start, just program it right and youll be good. have fun with it

oh man this brought back memories, i went through the exact same thing last spring. sat there hitting refresh on ULS for two days straight. when my callsign finally popped up i just stared at it for a minute before it sank in. my first QSO was on a local 2m repeater and i was so nervous i forgot to give my callsign at the end like twice before someone gently reminded me haha. welcome to the hobby, its a rabbit hole for sure, six months in and ive already upgraded to General and im eyeing an HF rig which my wallet is not happy about