so i passed my technician exam last thursday and spent the whole weekend trying to figure out my baofeng uv-5r and the local repeater. took me like three attempts just to get the offset and tone right, kept getting weird squelch noise every time i tried to transmit and had no idea what i was doing wrong.

anyway finally got it sorted and jumped on the 147.xxx repeater in my area tuesday evening and this guy came back to me and i completely blanked on what to say after my callsign. just kind of stumbled through it and said something about being a new ham and the weather. he was super patient though and walked me through a proper exchange which was really cool of him.

anyone else remember their first QSO being kind of awkward? feels like there should be a support group for this lol. also still not sure if im using proper phonetics right, i keep second guessing myself mid-transmission

oh man yes my first time on a repeater i forgot to let go of the PTT and just sat there breathing into the mic for like five seconds before someone keyed up and said "go ahead" and i panicked and just said my callsign and dropped off. took me another two days to try again haha

the phonetics thing gets way easier, just practice them out loud when youre driving or whatever. after a few weeks it just comes out automatically. welcome to the hobby

Congratulations on the ticket. Everybody fumbles their first few QSOs, that's just how it goes. The guy who worked you has almost certainly been there too, that's why most hams are pretty patient with new folks getting their feet wet on a repeater.

One thing that helped me early on was just listening to the repeater for a few days before transmitting. You start to pick up the rhythm of how people identify, how long they pause, all that. Also dont stress too much about perfect phonetics right away, as long as your callsign is readable youre fine. The ITU alphabet clicks eventually.