ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (tech) and i finally got my baofeng programmed to hit the local 147.something repeater. i can hear people talking on it fine but when i key up nobody seems to hear me, or at least nobody responds. i checked the repeater directory and it says the tone is 100.0 hz. i think i have it set right in chirp but honestly im not 100% sure if i set it as a tone or a tsql or whatever the difference even is.

also i noticed sometimes there are two different groups of people talking at different times and they seem to kind of just... take turns? like is there some kind of schedule or do people just know when to jump in? i dont want to step on anybody. one of the guys on there sounds like he does a net every tuesday or something. should i wait until after that before i try to check in or is it ok to just say my callsign at some point?

sorry if these are dumb questions, just trying to not be that guy who ruins everyone elses QSO

not dumb questions at all, everybody goes through this. the CTCSS thing trips up a lot of new folks with the baofeng/chirp combo. so basically — tone means you're transmitting a subaudible tone so the repeater opens up, and tsql means your radio will also squelch your receive side unless it hears that tone coming back. for hitting a repeater you generally only need to set the transmit tone, not tsql. if you set tsql and the repeater doesn't send a tone back (a lot of them dont) then you wont hear any output at all even if the repeater is working fine. double check in chirp that the tone column for that channel has 100.0 and the tone mode is set to Tone, not TSQL.

as for the etiquette stuff — yeah there's kind of an unwritten rhythm to it. most regulars know each other and leave gaps between transmissions so others can break in if needed. for a net specifically, wait till the net control opens it up for check-ins, they usually say something like "are there any stations wishing to check in" and thats your moment. just say your callsign phonetically and wait. you'll get the hang of it real fast, the people on most local repeaters are pretty welcoming to new hams.

yeah what he said about chirp, i had the exact same problem when i started. also worth mentioning — some repeaters around here are linked to other machines through like an IRLP node or Allstar or whatever so sometimes you'll hear a weird beep or a robotic voice announcement when somebody connects from another repeater. dont let that throw you off, its totally normal. i actually thought my radio was broken the first time i heard it lol. just means someone from across the state or wherever jumped on the link.