so I just got my technician license about three weeks ago and ive been trying to get on the local 2m repeater but nobody ever seems to hear me. I can hear other people talking just fine on 147.255 but when I key up nothing happens, no courtesy tone, nobody responds. I looked up the repeater on repeaterbook and it says the tone is 100.0 Hz so I programmed that into my baofeng but still nothing.

my buddy who got his license a few years ago said maybe I have the tone set to transmit only when I need it on both TX and RX? not sure what that means exactly. also is there some kind of protocol for just jumping into a conversation or do you just wait? I dont want to step on anyone or be rude about it. still learning all this stuff

yeah your buddy is on the right track — on most Baofengs you need to make sure the CTCSS is set for transmit (T-CTCSS) not receive (R-CTCSS), or sometimes people accidentally set it to squelch on the tone coming in which means you'd only hear stations that are also sending 100.0 Hz. the repeater itself handles opening the squelch, you dont need to filter incoming audio by tone usually.

so double check the channel settings and make sure 100.0 is set as your transmit tone only. also give it a second after you key up before you start talking — Baofengs especially have a slight delay before the signal actually reaches the repeater and trips the input. I've seen new folks key and talk instantly and the first syllable just gets eaten. try saying something like your callsign and "listening" and see if you get the courtesy beep back. if you do, you're in.

as for jumping in on a QSO, yeah just wait for a pause between transmissions and say your callsign during the gap. most folks on repeaters are pretty welcoming to new hams checking in.

oh man I had the exact same problem when I first started lol. turned out I had the offset wrong too, not just the tone. like the repeater was on 147.255 but I had the offset going the wrong direction so I was transmitting on the wrong frequency entirely. worth double checking that your offset is set to +600 kHz for that frequency range if you're in the US.

once I sorted all that out it just worked. repeater stuff felt really complicated at first but honestly once you get one figured out the rest kinda click into place