ok so i just got my technician license about 3 weeks ago and ive been trying to get on the local FM repeater but nobody seems to hear me. the repeater itself is coming in loud and clear on my baofeng, i can hear other people talking on it just fine. but whenever i key up nobody responds and honestly im not even sure if im making it onto the repeater at all.

i looked up the repeater on repeaterbook and it says it needs a 100.0 Hz tone. i programmed that into my radio as the transmit tone but still nothing. do i need to also set a receive tone or is that a separate thing? and also is there some kind of protocol for getting on a repeater for the first time, like do you just say your callsign and wait or is there something else you're supposed to do

been reading a lot but honestly some of this stuff just doesnt click until you actually try it i guess

hey welcome to the hobby first of all. so the CTCSS thing -- you only need to set the transmit tone, not a receive tone, at least for most repeaters. the receive tone (sometimes called DCS or just squelch tone) is only for filtering out the audio on your end if you dont want to hear every kerchunk, but it wont affect whether the repeater hears you. so if you have 100.0 set on your TX you should be good there.

one thing that trips up a lot of people with baofengs is the menu system is kind of a nightmare and sometimes the tone gets set in one memory channel but not the one you're actually using. worth double checking that the tone is saved to the actual channel you're transmitting on and not just set globally or whatever.

as for getting on -- yeah just key up, say your callsign, and maybe something like "[your call] listening" or "monitoring" and see if anyone comes back. some repeaters are just quiet a lot of the time though, doesnt mean youre doing anything wrong. try it a few times at different times of day, evenings tend to be more active around here at least.

also worth checking if the repeater is linked to anything like a hub or an IRLP node because sometimes those systems have their own quirks. like theres one near me that sounds totally normal but its actually tied into a network and there's like a half second delay before it actually gates your audio through, so if you're only keying up for a second or two your voice might be getting cut off before anyone hears you. try holding the PTT for about a second before you start talking and see if that helps