so i passed my technician exam last tuesday and just been listening on the local repeater trying to get the nerve up to actually key up. finally did it this afternoon, just a quick check-in on a net and this guy from texas came back to me and we chatted for maybe 10 minutes about antennas and whatever. nothing special but honestly it felt really cool, like the whole thing finally clicked that this is actually a two way thing not just listening

been using a baofeng uv-5r that my brother in law gave me, i know i know everyone has opinions about those but it works fine for now. probably gonna look into a better radio once i figure out what i actually want to do with the hobby. anyone else remember their first real qso? was it as weirdly exciting as mine felt lol

haha yeah man i remember mine, i fumbled the whole phonetic alphabet and just said my callsign like three times because i panicked and forgot what else to say. the other op was super patient about it. dont sweat the baofeng thing, we all started somewhere and honestly for learning the ropes on a local repeater its perfectly fine

congrats on the first qso. honestly the nervousness never fully goes away for me even now when im trying to work a new DX station, totally different situation but same butterflies. stick with it, the nets are a good way to get comfortable before you just start calling CQ on your own which is a whole other level of terrifying the first time