okay so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (technician) and i finally got a decent handheld, a Baofeng UV-5R which i know people have opinions about but its what i could afford. anyway i programmed in the local 2m repeater and i can hear people on it just fine but when i try to transmit nobody seems to hear me or respond. i checked the frequency and offset and those seem right but im wondering if its a CTCSS thing. the repeater directory listing shows a tone of 88.5 but i honestly dont really understand what that means or how to set it up properly on the radio. is the tone something i transmit, something i need to receive, or both? i feel like i must be missing something obvious here because everyone else seems to be getting in fine.

also somewhat related — when i do eventually get on the repeater is there like a standard way to call out? i dont want to be that guy who just starts rambling without knowing the etiquette. i heard you're supposed to wait for the courtesy tone or something. any help appreciated

yeah the CTCSS thing trips up a lot of new folks, dont worry about it. the tone you're seeing — 88.5 Hz — is what you need to transmit to open up the repeater. basically the repeater has a little filter on it that ignores anyone who doesnt send that subaudible tone, which keeps random interference and other stuff from keying it up accidentally. so you program 88.5 as your transmit tone and youre good. on the Baofeng you go into the menu, i think its menu item 13 for T-CTCS (thats the transmit one), set it to 88.5 and you should be getting in. the receive CTCSS (R-CTCS) you can usually leave off unless the directory specifically says there's a receive tone required, which is less common.

as for calling out on the repeater, yeah just wait for that courtesy beep after someone finishes talking, then just say your callsign and that youre monitoring or listening, something like "W1XYZ monitoring" is totally fine. people will usually come back to you or at least youll know the radio is working. dont overthink it, most repeater folks are pretty welcoming to new hams.

what Gary said is right about the tone. one thing i'd add is double check your offset too since that can also cause a one-way situation where you hear the repeater output but your signal goes nowhere useful. most 2m repeaters use a 600 kHz offset but just make sure yours is set negative or positive correctly depending on the frequency — there are charts online and most programming software handles it automatically if you import from RepeaterBook.

oh and dont stress too much about the etiquette stuff, honestly just listen for a while before jumping in and youll pick it up fast. the only thing that really bugs people is dead kerchunking the repeater over and over without IDing, so just make sure you always give your callsign when you key up and you'll be fine. welcome to the hobby by the way