so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (tech) and i finally got my first mobile rig set up in the car, a used Kenwood TM-V71A i picked up at the hamfest last month. been trying to get on the local FM repeaters but honestly im still kind of lost on the whole CTCSS thing and i want to make sure im not annoying anyone.

the repeater directory shows a tone of 100.0 Hz for the main repeater in my area. i programmed that into my radio as the transmit tone, but do i also need to set a receive tone? i left the receive side on carrier squelch because i wasnt sure. also when i key up should i just say my callsign and wait, or is there some other way you're supposed to announce yourself? i heard someone say you should just give your call and say listening but then i heard someone else do it differently so now im not sure what the norm is around here. dont want to step on anyone or be that guy who breaks into a QSO at the wrong time.

also the repeater has a 2 second courtesy beep before you're supposed to unkey - does that mean i wait 2 seconds after the other person stops talking before i key up? sorry if these are dumb questions, just trying to learn the ropes

not dumb questions at all, everybody starts somewhere. so the CTCSS thing - you've got it basically right. the transmit tone is what lets the repeater open up and actually hear you, without it your signal hits the input and just gets ignored. the receive tone on your end is optional honestly, it just mutes your speaker until someone transmitting through the repeater also has that tone encoded. most people leave rx tone off because you'd miss kerchunks and other activity, but some folks set it if the repeater frequency is busy with other stuff bleeding through. totally your call.

for breaking into a repeater, just give your callsign and say "monitoring" or "listening" - either works, different areas have slightly different habits but both are totally normal. if there's already a QSO going on, the polite thing is to wait for a pause between transmissions and throw your call in quick, the guys talking will usually acknowledge you and either bring you in or wrap up. and yeah the courtesy tone - that little beep after someone unkeys - is your signal that the repeater is ready for the next transmission. you dont have to wait a full 2 seconds yourself, just let the beep happen and then key up. if you jump in before the beep the repeater might cut your first syllable or two.

i went through the exact same thing when i got my ticket lol. honestly just get on there and talk, people on most repeaters are pretty patient with new folks. the worst that'll happen is someone gently corrects you and honestly thats fine, thats how you learn. the etiquette stuff varies a lot by repeater too - some have a linked system and weird rules about IDs, so it might be worth checking if your local club has any info posted about that specific machine.