okay so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (Tech) and i finally got my HT programmed for the local 146.940 repeater. i can hear people talking on it just fine but when i key up nobody seems to hear me, or at least nobody responds. i thought maybe the repeater just wasnt very active but then i heard a couple guys having a whole ragchew on there for like 45 minutes.

my buddy who got me into the hobby said something about a PL tone or CTCSS being needed but i wasnt sure if that was something i needed to set to receive or just to transmit. i have it set to 100hz on transmit i think, i copied that off the repeater directory website. or maybe it was 100.0 and theres a difference? im also not 100% sure my HT is even putting out enough power to hit the repeater, im about 8 miles away and running 5 watts.

also kind of a side question - when there ARE people talking on the repeater, is it rude to just jump in? i didnt want to interrupt a conversation but i also wasnt sure how you're supposed to let people know youre listening. someone mentioned saying your callsign between transmissions but i wasnt sure if that was required or just a courtesy thing.

the CTCSS tone is only for transmitting, not receive - at least on most setups. some repeaters use what's called DCS or they might encode a tone on the output too, but for accessing the repeater you generally only need the tone set on your TX side. so if you have 100.0hz programmed on your transmit that should be right assuming the directory listing is current, those do get outdated sometimes.

8 miles on 5 watts should be totally fine for most repeaters depending on terrain, an HT with a rubber duck antenna can be a little unpredictable indoors though. try going outside and keying up - just say something like "KD9whatever monitoring" and see if anyone comes back to you or if you at least hear the repeater tail (that little blip after you unkey). if you hear the tail you're probably getting in.

as for jumping into conversations, yeah you can just wait for a break between transmissions and say your callsign. most people are happy to have someone new check in, especially on a local machine. just dont step on someone mid-sentence, wait for the squelch to close. thats really about all there is to repeater etiquette for the basics, youll pick up the rest just by listening for a while.

so i was in almost the exact same boat when i first got started, couldnt figure out why nobody was hearing me and it turned out i had the offset programmed wrong - the repeater was on 146.940 but i had the offset going the wrong direction so i was basically transmitting on the output frequency instead of the input. worth double checking that too if you havent already. most 2m repeaters in that part of the band use a -600khz offset but its not universal.

also the etiquette thing is real and honestly just takes time to feel natural. some repeaters have a more formal check-in thing where they do a net on certain nights, thats actually a good way to meet people and get used to how things flow on that particular machine. some are very chatty and some are basically dead and people only use them for emergencies or linking to other stuff.