okay so i just got my technician license about three weeks ago and ive been trying to use the local 2m repeater but i cant seem to get into it. i programmed the frequency in my baofeng (i know i know, everyone has opinions about baofengs) and i can hear people talking on it just fine but when i key up nobody responds and i dont see my signal making it through.

someone at the club meeting mentioned i probably need a CTCSS tone but i guess i dont really understand what that is or how to find out which one to use. like is there a database for this stuff? and also do i set the tone on transmit only or on both transmit and receive? i saw something about DCS too and now im even more confused than when i started.

also on a slightly different topic — i heard some guys on the repeater talking about linked systems and it sounded like they were suddenly talking to people in a totally different city. is that through the internet or is it RF the whole way? just curious how that works

welcome to the hobby, dont get discouraged this stuff trips up a lot of new folks. so CTCSS is basically a sub-audible tone your radio transmits along with your voice — the repeater uses it to filter out interference and only opens up when it hears the right tone. you wont hear it when someone else talks, its below normal audio range. for finding the right tone, check repeaterbook.com or radioreference.com — just search your area and it'll usually list the tone right there in the entry. set it on transmit only to start, that way you'll hear everything on the repeater but it'll accept your signal. DCS is similar concept just a different encoding method, most repeaters around here use CTCSS still.

as for the linking stuff — most of what you're hearing is probably IRLP or EchoLink or maybe Allstar, those all use voip over the internet to connect repeaters together. there are some fully RF linked systems but internet linking is way more common these days. some people have strong feelings about whether internet linking is "real" ham radio but honestly i think its pretty cool especially during nets that span multiple states.

yeah repeaterbook is your friend for sure. one thing i'd add is sometimes the listing on there is outdated or just wrong so if you program in the tone and still cant get in, try with no tone at first just to see if maybe the repeater is open access. some of them dont require a tone at all. also if theres a club that owns the repeater sometimes their website has the info and its more up to date than the databases.

baofeng works fine for getting started btw, dont let anyone give you a hard time about it