so i finally did it after like 6 months of putting it off, passed my technician exam yesterday and got my callsign this morning. already programmed my baofeng (yeah yeah i know) and jumped on the local 2m repeater. first transmission i completely forgot to ID at the end, then someone came back to me and i panicked and gave the wrong callsign, like i said my old study callsign from the practice tests. the guy on the other end was super patient with me though and we ended up talking for like 20 minutes about nothing in particular. honestly wasnt as scary as i thought once i got going but man that first key-up had my heart pounding. anyone else have a rough first QSO or is it just me

oh man that is very relatable, my first time on a repeater i keyed up and just said my callsign and then completely blanked on what to say next. just dead air for like 5 seconds before i managed to squeak out my grid square. the guy who answered me was an elmer type, super chill about it, walked me through the whole exchange. i still cringe thinking about it but honestly everyone on 2m around here has been nothing but helpful to new folks. dont sweat the baofeng thing either, plenty of people start with one, just get something better when you can

giving the wrong callsign is actually more common than you'd think, ive heard it happen plenty of times on nets. the important thing is you corrected it. welcome to the hobby, it gets way more natural after the first few contacts, you'll be ragchewing for hours before you know it. if your local club does a nets on a schedule worth checking those out too, more structured so you know when to talk and what to say roughly