so i passed my technician exam on the 14th and finally got my callsign assigned a few days later. been lurking here for like two months reading everything i could find. anyway i borrowed a baofeng uv-5r from my neighbor who used to be into this stuff and programmed the local 2m repeater in and just kind of sat there listening for a few days not sure if i was doing anything wrong.

finally yesterday i just keyed up during a lull and said my callsign and that i was new and honestly expected nothing. but this older guy came back to me and we talked for like 20 minutes about nothing in particular. he gave me a signal report and told me about the local club's net on thursdays. i dont know why but it felt way more real than i expected it to. like i built this thing up in my head as scary and it was just... two people talking on the radio. weird in a good way i guess.

anyway just wanted to share that somewhere. still figuring everything out.

haha yeah that first qso feeling is real man. i remember mine, i was shaking a little and completely forgot to give my callsign at the end of the transmission. the other guy was super cool about it though. welcome to the hobby, it only gets more addictive from here, fair warning.

the baofeng thing is fine to start out but once you get comfortable on the repeater you should look into getting your general and trying hf. completely different world. i was only on vhf for maybe two months before i caught the dx bug and now i cant imagine just doing local stuff. not saying vhf is bad just... theres a lot more out there. anyway congrats on the license