okay so i just got my technician license about three weeks ago and ive been listening to the local 2m repeater a lot trying to get the hang of things before i actually key up. i noticed that sometimes there's like a short beep or tone before someone starts talking and i honestly dont know what that is. is that the repeater itself doing something or is that like a courtesy tone or what?

also i programmed what i think is the right CTCSS tone into my baofeng (67.0 hz i think, i got it off the repeater directory) but when i transmit i dont hear myself come back through or anything. not sure if thats normal or if i messed up the offset or something. the repeater is listed as plus 600 khz offset. i feel like im missing something obvious here but i cant figure it out from the manual which is pretty terrible honestly.

and one more thing — is there like an unwritten rule about how long you should wait after someone stops talking before you key up? i dont want to be that guy who steps on everyone

Welcome to the hobby, dont stress too much you're asking exactly the right questions. That beep you're hearing is almost certainly the courtesy tone — most repeaters are set up to play a short tone after someone unkeys, it basically tells everyone on frequency that the channel is clear and you can go ahead and transmit without doubling up on someone. Some repeaters have different beeps for different things, like one tone if the repeater is just idle and a different one when it's linked to another system or in a low-power state. Once you start listening more you'll start to recognize what your local machine does.

On the CTCSS thing — 67.0 is one of the more common tones so you're probably fine there, but double check that your radio is set to transmit the tone and not just receive with it. On a lot of the cheaper handhelds those are two separate settings and it trips people up constantly. The offset for 2m is usually +600 but make sure the direction is right too, some radios default to the wrong direction depending on where in the band you are.

And yeah, the wait time thing — just let the courtesy tone finish and then give it maybe another half second. That's usually enough. No need to rush.

the baofeng manual thing is a real struggle lol, i went through the same exact confusion when i started. one thing that helped me was just finding someone local who already had the repeater programmed and asking them to share the settings. most clubs have a programming file you can just load in if you have the cable.

also worth mentioning — some repeaters require you to have a tone to access them at all, so if you're transmitting without the tone encoded youll just get nothing back. others are open and don't care. so if you transmitted without the tone first that might explain it