ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (tech class) and i finally got my HT programmed for the local 2m repeater. the repeater directory listing shows a 100.0 Hz tone and i have that set as my transmit tone but when i key up nobody ever responds and i dont hear any of my transmissions come back through the repeater. i can hear other people using it just fine so i know im receiving it ok.

my question is do i also need to set a receive tone or is the transmit tone enough? i looked this up and got completely different answers depending on where i looked. some sites say you need both set the same, others say only the transmit side matters. also is there some kind of etiquette thing im missing - like do people just not respond to random "is anyone listening" type calls on repeaters? cause i tried that a couple times too and got nothing. my radio is a baofeng uv-5r if that matters.

the transmit tone is what actually opens the repeater - thats the one that has to match. the receive tone (sometimes called decode or CTCSS squelch) is just so your radio stays quiet when other signals bleed in that arent on the repeater. most people leave the receive tone off or set it to carrier squelch so they can hear everything coming through. so if youre hearing others just fine you probably have that part set right already.

the more likely issue honestly is your audio. baofengs can have weird mic gain settings and sometimes they transmit but nobody can actually understand what youre saying, or the deviation is off. try asking on the repeater if anyone can do a radio check and see what kind of audio report you get. also some repeaters have a courtesy tone - a little beep after someone stops transmitting - and if the repeater isnt beeping back at you after you key up that means it probably isnt hearing you at all. as for nobody responding to general calls, yeah that happens, repeaters can feel pretty dead until you catch someone at the right time. try during commute hours if theres any regular activity on that machine.

yeah the uv-5r can be kind of a pain to program manually, i went through the same thing when i first started. i ended up using CHIRP software to load the repeater in and it made it way easier to see what was actually set vs what i thought was set. worth trying if you havent already. and yeah dont feel bad about the no-reply thing, the repeater near me sounds completely dead most of the day and then 5pm hits and suddenly theres like 6 guys chatting lol