okay so i just got my technician last month and ive been trying to get on the local FM repeater but im getting nowhere. i can hear people on it just fine but when i transmit nobody responds and i dont think im getting into the machine at all. my HT is a baofeng UV-5R and i programmed in the frequency with the offset and everything but im not sure about the tone.

the repeater directory listing says 107.2 and i put that in but not sure if its supposed to be in the transmit tone or receive tone field or both? the menus on this thing are a mess. also is there some kind of protocol for when to jump in on a conversation or do you just wait for a break? i dont want to be that guy who cuts people off. been lurking on the frequency for like two weeks now just listening lol

Welcome to the hobby, dont stress too much about the baofeng menus they are genuinely confusing at first. For the CTCSS tone - that 107.2 needs to go in the transmit tone (sometimes labeled T-CTCS or TXtone depending on firmware). The receive tone field is for squelch on your end, most people leave that blank or set it to the same tone so you only hear traffic that came through the repeater. Either way wont stop you from getting into the machine, only the TX tone matters for that.

As for jumping in, the standard thing is to just say your callsign during a pause between transmissions. Something like just your call, keep it short. If the repeater gives you a courtesy beep after your transmission then you got in. Most regulars on a club machine are pretty welcoming to new voices, honestly just key up and say hi one evening.

yeah the two-week lurking thing is very relatable haha i did the same thing. one thing that helped me was when i finally just keyed up during a quiet moment and said my call to see if the repeater itself would respond - a lot of them send back a courtesy tone or an ID so you know you made it through even if nobody's around to answer. that told me my programming was right before i tried to actually talk to anyone.

also some repeaters are linked to other systems like echolink or IRLP and sometimes the traffic youre hearing is coming from somewhere else entirely, which is kind of cool once you wrap your head around it.