hey everyone, so i finally did it after putting it off for like two years lol. passed the technician exam yesterday with a 32/35 which i was pretty happy with considering i only studied for about three weeks using the hamStudy website and some youtube videos. im KD9 something, waiting on the FCC to actually put me in the database which feels like it takes forever.

anyway my uncle is WB8 something and he got me into this, he lives about 40 minutes away and we've been talking on a local 2m repeater already which is honestly way cooler than i expected. just using a baofeng for now which i know everyone has opinions about but it works and i didnt want to spend a bunch of money before i knew i liked it. planning to eventually get into HF once i study for general but thats a ways off probably. just wanted to say hi and ask if anyone has tips for a brand new tech who wants to actually get on the air more and not just listen.

congrats and welcome. honestly the best thing you can do right now is just get on that repeater and talk to people, dont be shy about IDing yourself as new because most folks are happy to help. check if theres a local club near you too, a lot of them do elmers nights or just informal meetups where you can actually see equipment in person which is way more useful than reading about it online. the baofeng is fine to start, dont let anyone give you grief about it.

dude i was in basically the exact same spot eight months ago, first qso on a repeater felt so weird because i kept forgetting to let go of the PTT button lol. it gets way more natural pretty fast though. if you wanna get into more than just local stuff before you upgrade look into things like APRS, you can do that on 2m with a tech license and its kinda addicting to watch your position beacon show up on aprs.fi