so i finally got my technician license about 3 weeks ago and ive been trying to get into my local FM repeater but keep having issues. i can hear everyone just fine but when i key up nobody seems to hear me or at least nobody responds. did some digging and i think its a CTCSS tone thing but im not 100% sure.

the repeater is listed in repeaterbook and it shows a 100.0 Hz tone but when i look at my radio (its a baofeng uv-5r, i know i know) it has like a ton of options in the CTCSS menu and i honestly wasnt sure if i needed to set the tone for transmit, receive, or both. i set it on both and still nothing. my signal is getting out because i can hear the repeater tail when i unkey so something is happening, right? or is that normal regardless?

also not sure about the etiquette side of things - like when is it okay to just jump in and call CQ or whatever on a repeater? i dont want to step on anyone or be that guy on my first week

hey welcome to the hobby, dont stress too much about the baofeng thing, we all started somewhere and plenty of people run them just fine for local repeater work.

so the CTCSS setup - for most repeaters you only need to set the tone on your transmit side, not receive. the tone is basically what tells the repeater to open up and let you through, it filters out noise and other interference. if you set a tone on the receive side too youll only hear people who are also sending that same tone, which on a repeater usually means you might miss some traffic depending on how things are set up. so try setting transmit tone to 100.0 and leave the receive tone squelch off or set to carrier only and see if that helps.

as for the repeater tail you mentioned - yeah that click or beep you hear after someone unkeys is totally normal, its just the repeater dropping back to standby. hearing that doesnt necessarily mean your signal is getting in. you might be able to tell if you kerchunk the repeater (just key up without saying anything briefly) and you hear the tail come back, that usually means you made it in. though honestly kerchunking a lot without IDing is considered a bit rude so just do it once to test and then identify yourself properly if it works.

for jumping in - honestly on most repeaters its totally fine to just say your callsign and that youre monitoring, or if theres a gap in conversation you can say your call and see if anyone comes back. most people are pretty welcoming to new voices especially if you mention youre newly licensed. just listen for a bit first to get a feel for how busy it is.

the transmit vs receive tone thing tripped me up too when i first started, took me like two days to figure out why nobody could hear me lol. also worth double checking the offset on your radio - if the repeater is on say 146.940 the output is what youll hear but your radio needs to transmit on a different frequency (usually minus 600khz for 2 meters in that range). repeaterbook should list the offset direction too. sometimes when you program a baofeng manually it doesnt automatically set that and youre basically transmitting on the wrong freq entirely which would explain nobody hearing you even if the tone is right.