Passing your amateur radio exam proves you know a lot of important things. You’ve learned the basics of how radios work, the potential dangers of electricity and RF, and the regulations that govern amateur radio in Canada.
What the ISED exam doesn’t teach you is how to actually be a ham on the air. It doesn’t teach you how to deal with your panic when someone answers your CQ for the first time.
Stage fright isn’t new to me. In high school, we held an annual Shakespeare festival, and one year I found myself on stage reciting lines from Julius Caesar. I was nervously making my way through the performance when a child in the front row stuck his tongue out at me.
My mind went completely blank.
Decades later, I discovered that apparently stage fright also applies to microphones.
There is a particular kind of panic that comes with getting on the air for the first time. You press the PTT, say the words you’ve practised, and then someone actually answers you.
Oh no. Now what?
The exam doesn’t teach you how to join a conversation on a repeater, what to do when you forget someone’s call sign five seconds after they give it to you, or how to get comfortable pressing that PTT button when you know other people are listening.
That part you learn by getting on the air.
This summer, I’ve had the opportunity to be net control on a couple of nets. Ken, VA2TXZ, is the usual net control for the Tuesday evening New Hams Net, and earlier this summer he sat down with me and walked me through how to do it. More importantly, he gave me the confidence to try it myself.
I also buddied up with my fellow new hams Monique, VA3NTB, and David, VA3UDA. We’ve provided each other with moral support as we’ve taken turns trying net control. There is something reassuring about knowing another new ham is there who understands exactly why you might be staring at the microphone thinking, “Okay…now what?”
Recently, while serving as net control for the New Hams Net, I asked the participants: What advice do you wish you had received when you were getting your ticket?
I wrote down their answers, expecting a wide range of advice. Instead, a theme emerged.
Just get on the air.
Don’t let mic fright stop you. Don’t wait until you know everything, because you never will. Ask questions. Try things. Make mistakes. And again and again, people talked about how helpful and supportive other amateur radio operators are.
That has certainly been my experience. Experienced hams generally want to help. They’ll explain something you don’t understand, help troubleshoot something that isn’t working, patiently remind you of a procedure, or simply encourage you to try. They remember that they were new once, too.
And really, how could anyone know it all?
Amateur radio is absurdly broad. HF, repeaters, digital modes, satellites, antennas, POTA, CW… you could spend decades exploring it and still find something completely new. Getting your licence gives you permission to start learning and doing, not a certificate saying you’ve finished.
When you first get your call sign, it can feel as though everyone else knows some unwritten set of rules that you somehow missed. They know the jargon. They know when to talk. They recognize equipment you’ve never heard of. They seem to know instinctively what all those buttons on the radio do.
But every experienced operator was once a brand-new ham holding a microphone and wondering what to say.
So take the advice I heard on the New Hams Net: press the button. Say your call sign. Check into a net. Answer a CQ. Ask the question you think everyone else already knows the answer to.
Just get on the air.
And if your mind goes completely blank? At least nobody in the front row can stick their tongue out at you.
73, Michelle VA3PZA
Last Updated on 2026-10-01 by Joannadanna