so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (tech) and just got my first HT, a Baofeng UV-5R, and i've been trying to get into the local 2m repeater. the repeater directory shows it as 146.820 with a minus offset and the CTCSS tone listed is 100.0 Hz. i programmed it in but half the time it seems like nobody responds when i call and other times i can hear people talking fine but they cant hear me or something? not sure if im even hitting the repeater at all.

also someone on there the other night said i should wait for a pause before transmitting and i kind of knew that but i guess i was jumping in too fast. is there like an unwritten rule about how long you wait? feels awkward just sitting there in silence before saying your callsign.

any help appreciated, pretty new to all this and dont want to step on anyone

hey welcome to the hobby, dont stress too much about it. the CTCSS thing is probably fine if you programmed in 100.0 on the transmit side — just double check that you set it as the TX tone and not just the RX squelch, because on the Baofeng those are two separate settings and a lot of new folks mix them up. the menu is kind of a mess honestly.

as for the pause, yeah there's kind of an informal thing where you wait a second or two after the repeater's courtesy beep before you key up. most repeaters have a tail and a beep to let you know the previous transmission dropped, so you wait for that. if you jump in before the beep you might step on someone who's about to come back. it's not a hard rule but people notice when you don't do it. took me a while to get the feel for it too.

if you're not sure you're hitting it at all, try just keying up and saying your callsign and "testing" — someone will usually come back and let you know if they can hear you fine or if you're weak. most repeater folks are pretty chill about that kind of thing.

yeah the baofeng CTCSS setup tripped me up for a solid week when i started lol. one thing worth checking — some repeaters also have a timeout timer, so if you hold the key too long without saying anything it'll cut you off and you might think you're not getting in when really you just timed out. not sure if that's what's happening to you but worth keeping in mind.

the etiquette stuff kinda just comes with time honestly. i still feel awkward sometimes jumping into a roundtable that's already going.