Finding a Repeater in your area

[prerunner1982]

Here is a good website to put in your location and the frequency band(s) you are wanting to find. It includes the necessary PL tones and distance/direction the tower is from you.

http://www.amateur-radio.net/rptr/

[Mudderoy]

PL Tones are sub-audible tones that are generated or decoded by your radio. On receive they are used (generally) to keep your receiver quite until the repeater transmits. Receive tones are almost never used. It might be good in an area where there is a lot of intermod which is transmissions from other frequencies. Your squelch is usually enough to keep your radio quite until the repeater comes on.

PL tones for transmit from your radio are used to turn the repeater on.

Basic repeater operation is you transmit on the repeater's receive frequency and you receive on the repeater's transmit frequency. This would be considered split frequency operation. Effectively this makes your antenna as high as the repeater's antenna and it's output power your output power.

This is why you can talk 10's of miles on a little hand held radio.

The pl tone used by your radio to the repeater basically keeps random transmitted signals from turning on the repeater. You program your transmit pl tone to match that of what the repeater expects and when you transmit to the repeater it will retransmit your signal.

I know I'm leaving a lot out but maybe that will help with a portion of how this works.