so ive been licensed for about 6 months now and i keep hearing about these tone things but honestly im still confused. i know my radio has like 50 different tones to choose from but how do i know which one to use? my local repeater directory just says "pl tone" but doesnt say what that means exactly. also do i need to worry about this for simplex too or just repeaters?

sorry if this is a dumb question but the manual for my baofeng is pretty useless and youtube videos all seem to assume you already know this stuff

Not dumb at all! PL tone is just another way of saying CTCSS (Continuous Tone Coded Squelch System). Think of it like a key that unlocks the repeater - without the right tone, the repeater won't repeat your transmission. Each repeater uses a specific frequency like 88.5 Hz or 146.2 Hz and you'll find that info in repeater directories or on radiodashboard.com. You only need it for repeaters, not simplex. Set your radio to transmit the tone and you should be good to go.

yeah what he said but also dont forget some repeaters have different tones for input and output. most just use one tone but ive run into a few that had seperate encode and decode tones which threw me off when i was starting out. also if you hear static or weird noises when people are talking it might be because your radio isnt decoding the tone properly