ok so i just got my technician license about three weeks ago and ive been listening to the local 2m repeater for a while now trying to get a feel for things before i key up. i understand the basic concept of the repeater rebroadcasting your signal but im confused about a few things.

first the CTCSS tone thing — my radio came preprogrammed with some tones but i dont really understand if i need to match the tone the repeater uses or if its something else entirely. i set it to 100hz because someone on youtube said that was common but i honestly have no idea if thats right for my local repeater or if thats even how it works.

second thing is the etiquette part. ive been listening for like 2 weeks and sometimes the repeater is totally silent for hours then someone has a whole conversation and then silence again. is there like a right time to just say hi and introduce myself or do i need to wait for a break in something? i did try to key up once and just said my callsign but nobody came back to me. was that wrong or did i just catch a bad time?

sorry if these are dumb questions, everyone on here seems to know way more than me

not dumb questions at all, these are the exact things that trip everybody up at first. the CTCSS thing — you need to find out what tone YOUR specific repeater requires, not just guess 100hz. most repeater clubs post their info online or in a directory like repeaterbook.com, look yours up by frequency and it'll tell you the input tone you need to transmit. the tone the repeater sends OUT on its signal is different from what you need to send IN, though a lot of repeaters use the same tone for both.

as for just calling out on a quiet repeater, what you did was totally fine and honestly the right thing to do. just say something like "this is [your callsign] listening" or even just your callsign. sometimes nobody is around monitoring, sometimes people are around but not paying close attention. try different times of day — a lot of the regulars do a morning commute check-in kind of thing, early evening tends to be active too. just keep at it, once you make one contact the rest feels way more natural.

yeah i was in the same boat not that long ago honestly. one thing i'd add is that some repeaters are linked to other systems like IRLP or AllStar and you might hear the linking tones or a different accent and wonder whats going on lol. its worth knowing if your local machine does any of that because the etiquette can be slightly different, like you usually dont want to interrupt when a net is already going through the link or whatever. but for basic everyday use just do what the other guy said and look it up on repeaterbook, took me like 5 minutes to get my radio programmed properly once i actually looked instead of guessing