ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (general) and i finally got a decent HT, a Baofeng UV-5R which i know people have opinions about but its what i could afford right now. anyway theres a couple repeaters listed on repeaterbook for my area and i programmed them in but when i key up nobody ever responds and i cant tell if im actually hitting the repeater or not.

i did figure out that some of them need a CTCSS tone to open the squelch on the input side and i think i have that set right but honestly im not 100% sure. one of the repeaters just says 100.0 on repeaterbook and thats what i put in but the other one doesnt list a tone at all — does that mean its carrier squelch? or does it mean the listing is just incomplete. i tried just transmitting without any tone on that one and still nothing.

also i dont really know what the etiquette is for just calling on a repeater when you dont know anyone. do you just say your callsign and say youre monitoring or is that weird? i dont want to come across as annoying but i also kinda want to actually talk to someone lol

yeah no you're probably doing fine, repeaterbook listings are notoriously incomplete or outdated sometimes. the one without a tone listed is likely carrier squelch but it could also just be a lazy listing, happens all the time. if you have a scanner or a second radio you can try listening on the output frequency first to see if you can hear anyone else using it, that'll at least tell you the repeater is alive.

for calling out, totally normal to just say something like "[your callsign] monitoring" or even just key up and give your call once and see if anyone comes back. some repeaters are pretty quiet during the day especially on weekdays. evenings and weekends tend to be more active. dont get discouraged if you call a few times and hear nothing, it doesnt mean youre doing it wrong. also some clubs run nets on their repeaters on specific nights, worth checking if there's a local club website or facebook group where they announce that stuff.

the UV-5R should work fine for hitting local repeaters, just make sure your offset is set correctly for the band, 600khz for 2m and 5mhz for 70cm usually, and that the offset direction matches what the listing says.

i was in the exact same spot like a year ago and honestly just announcing yourself works. i said something like "this is [callsign] just got my license, anyone around?" and someone came back within like a minute. felt weird at first but thats kind of the point of a repeater right. good luck, it gets less awkward fast