ok so i finally got my technician license last month and ive been trying to get on the local FM repeaters but im having a hard time figuring out the tone thing. i programmed my baofeng with the frequency and offset that the repeater directory listed but when i key up nobody seems to hear me, or at least nobody responds. a guy at the club meeting mentioned i probably need to set the CTCSS encode tone but i wasnt sure if i needed decode too or just encode.

also i noticed there are two repeaters listed nearby, one says 100.0 hz tone and the other doesnt list a tone at all. does that mean the second one is open and i dont need any tone? i tried keying up on that one and i could hear it open the squelch a little but then nothing. not sure if thats normal or if im just missing something obvious. any help appreciated, been at this for a few days now and its a little frustrating

yeah so the encode vs decode thing trips up a lot of new folks. for accessing a repeater you pretty much only need to set the encode tone — thats the one your radio transmits as a subaudible tone along with your voice. the repeater itself has a decoder that listens for that specific tone before it opens up and retransmits you. if you dont send the right tone the repeater just ignores your signal even if you have a perfectly good signal into it.

for the decode side on your radio, thats optional and just means your radio will mute incoming audio unless it hears a specific tone — useful if theres interference but for just getting started you can leave decode off or set it to carrier squelch. and yeah if a repeater isnt listed with a tone it might be open carrier access, though some just dont have their info updated in the directory. worth checking the repeater owner's website or asking someone local who uses it regularly.

oh man i had the exact same problem when i started, turns out i had my offset going the wrong direction lol. worth double checking that too — most 2m repeaters in north america are minus 600khz but some are plus offset and if you have it backwards the repeater definitely wont hear you even with the right tone. baofengs can be a little weird to program manually so if you havent already just try chirp, makes it way easier to see everything at once