Choose a Legal Frequency and Mode

Your Elmer wants you on the air. Tune your first HF and VHF attempts to a frequency AND a mode your Technician license actually authorizes there — being inside a band you're granted under §97.301 does not mean every mode is legal on it under §97.305.

Set up your radio to reach a local 2-meter FM repeater: dial in its output frequency, apply the correct offset direction and shift, program the access tone, and use Reverse to confirm your transmitter actually reaches the repeater's input frequency before you call.

Put out a call on the national FM simplex calling frequency, work an answering station through a short exchange, and keep your identification current the whole way through — at the start of the contact, mid-contact, and at sign-off.