Once you have received your ham radio license and acquired a radio, you may realize that there are a lot of different frequencies that you can tune it to. You may be wonder how you are going to find someone to talk to on it. These methods are also helpful for hams who may be travelling or planning a vacation but which to use the radio while away from home.

The easiest way to find out what you should program in to your radio is to talk to another ham radio operator in the area and they will be able to tell you the frequencies and access tones to the local repeaters. They will also be able to tell you which ones to listen on at what times of day to get the best results.

If you cannot locate or make contact with a ham in your area, the next best thing would likely be to look online and see if you can find the frequencies for the repeaters published somewhere. One such site is the artscipub amateur repeater database. They have a very thorough list and will likely have one listed that is in your area so that you can have a way to make your first contact.

Another option would be to go to the national calling frequency for whatever band your radio happens to be (146.520 for 2 meters and 446.000 for 70 cm) and listen to see if anyone is there. If you don’t hear anyone, you may try saying your call sign a couple of times and asking if anyone is around.

These three methods are the ways which you will be most likely to get talking to someone on your new radio. I would suggest trying them in the order in which they are listed, but any combination of the 3 will be much more successful than just experimenting with the different options and hoping for positive results.