Why am I not hearing repeater identification more often?

Question

I just bought a 2m/70cm handheld. I programmed in the local repeaters and have been scanning them for a couple of days. Only about twice have I heard one of the repeaters come up and identify itself. From reading, my understanding is that the repeaters are supposed to identify themselves periodically, more often than every hour. I am confused about why I am not hearing them more often.

I did see a conversation on Reddit that suggested that a reason one may not hear the repeaters in cases like this might be because they can be configured to transmit CTCSS tone only when someone keys up the repeater. However, I have the R-CTCSS turned off on my radio, so I wouldn't expect this to be the cause (but maybe I'm mistaken on this).

Am I mistaken in my reasoning somewhere?

Answer 1

(written assuming you and the repeater are in the USA)

Also, repeaters (indeed, any station aside from telemetry) are only required to identify every 10 minutes during communication and at the end of communication. If a repeater hasn't had any usage in the past 10 minutes, it has no need to identify (though many are programmed to periodically do anyway).

You mentioned scanning several repeaters, it's also possible that you missed the bulk (or even all) of a repeater's ID while zooming thru other frequencies, depending on how many you have programmed.

Regardless, when a repeater transmits a tone, it will NOT prevent you from receiving the tone UNLESS you've programmed the radio to require the tone.

Assuming you are licensed, you can do a simple test of transmit your call sign (you may even have a conversation with another ham!) and wait for no more than 10 min for the ID. And as @rclocher3 points out, the polite way to test a repeater is to announce what you're doing, like "W7ABC testing".

Hope this is helpful!

Answer 2

Many repeaters in my area, (Central Scotland,) do use/require, CTCSS codes for both transmitting & recieving. If you've not pre programmed both. You will for all intents and purposes be muted. Or basically squelched out. I may be preaching to choir. If so, apologies. Repeaters often transmit & receive on different frequencies. Luckily sites like, Repeater book. Publish all, offsets + or -. As well as codes, (CTCSS). This had me boggled for week's. Until one day i heard a transmission from a repeater 10miles away. Not a huge distance but considering i live within a glen. Which sits within another bigger valley. 10miles was like me hearing the, ISS. Hope my limited experience & awkward answer helped you somewhat.