ok so ive been licensed about 4 months now (tech) and just got my first HT, a Baofeng UV-5R, and im trying to get into the local 2m repeater. the repeater listing on repeaterbook shows a 100.0 Hz tone and i programmed that in but im not totally sure if that goes on transmit only or both transmit and receive or what. like i can hear traffic on the repeater just fine but when i try to call out nobody seems to hear me, or at least nobody responds.

also i just wanna make sure im not being rude or stepping on anyone — i know there's some kind of etiquette stuff i should know about. like do you just key up and say your callsign? do you wait for a gap in conversation? ive been lurking on the frequency for a few days and it seems like there's a small group that chats most evenings but i dont want to interrupt them if thats not how it works.

any help appreciated, still figuring all this out

The CTCSS tone (some people call it PL tone, same thing) almost always goes on transmit only — that's how you tell the repeater to open up and let your signal through. The receive side tone is a different thing called DCS or just tone squelch, and most people don't bother with that for general use, you'd just leave receive tone off so you can hear everything coming out of the repeater. So yeah, set your radio to transmit 100.0 Hz and leave receive on carrier squelch and you should be good.

As for etiquette, you're already doing the right thing by listening first, that's honestly more than a lot of new folks do. When there's a gap in conversation or the group wraps up, just key up, say your callsign, and say you're monitoring or listening, something like "W1ABC monitoring" or "W1ABC listening" and see if anyone comes back. Most repeater groups are pretty welcoming to new hams calling in. If theyre in the middle of a roundtable just wait for a pause between transmissions and throw your callsign out — that's totally normal and expected, it's how you let them know someone wants to join.

One thing to double check — make sure your offset is set right too. 2m repeaters are usually minus 600 kHz offset and if that's off you might be transmitting on the wrong frequency entirely. Could explain why nobody's hearing you.

yeah i was in the same boat when i started, the CTCSS stuff confused me for a while too. transmit only is correct, you dont need it on receive unless the repeater specifically says so which is pretty rare.

one thing i'll add — some repeaters are linked to other repeaters or to Echolink or IRLP or whatever, so sometimes what sounds like a small local group is actually a bunch of people from different states or even countries all connected together. just something to be aware of if you hear weird callsigns or people signing from far away. doesnt change the etiquette really but its kinda cool once you realize whats going on