I jumped off into this head first. Obtained my tech in June, my General in August. I bought a couple of 2m/70cm radios, l programmed a few repeaters, and I listed to a few conversations. I checked in on a few local nets, and basically got my feet wet. But that's where the excitement ended for me.

One of the things that I know I didn't like was that all of the 2m repeaters around here are pretty much segregated and dominated by a "royal few", and those royal few are forever bitching and complaining about the same stuff. One system is pretty much old Texas guys who you can barely understand because they are either swallowing the mic or talking through their tobacco chew, and the other system is pretty much dominated by one person. I mean for the love of grilled cheese, I have no idea how his radios live more than a few days without burning up. I'm fairly certain that his index finger has an indentation of the mic button on it.

But the conversation never changes. At 4am you can listen to all the 'good mornings', 7am is the drive to work, at noon you'll learn what everyone is doing for lunch, a few afternoon snacks and bitch sessions about the traffic, and then everyone "checks in with the wife" around 6pm. And between all of that, you can bet that someone is going to be bitching about the government, gays, and guns. I got tired of listening to the shame shit over and over and over, so I turned off the radio.

I still haven't made it to a local club meeting, they always fall on days/nights that I work.