ok so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and i thought i had a decent handle on part 97 but then someone at our club meeting brought up third party traffic and i realized i have no idea what the actual rules are here. like i know you cant just let randos talk on your radio but when CAN someone else use your mic? my friend wanted to say hi to someone i was in contact with and i just kind of froze up and said no because i wasnt sure. was that even the right call? and does it matter if its a domestic contact vs someone overseas? i feel like i remember reading something about third party agreements but i dont fully understand what that means in practice. im not trying to memorize the whole rulebook just want to know the practical version of when this is and isnt okay

yeah the third party thing trips a lot of people up. basically within the US it's pretty relaxed, you can let someone else talk through your station as long as you're there supervising and they're not doing anything that would otherwise violate part 97. the tricky part is international contacts. if you're talking to a station in another country, that country has to have a third party agreement with the US before you can hand the mic to an unlicensed person. the ARRL keeps a list of countries that have those agreements and honestly its not that long. some pretty common DX destinations are NOT on it so you really do have to check. your instinct to say no when you weren't sure was honestly the right move. better to be cautious than to have your callsign attached to a violation you didnt know you were making.

also worth mentioning that even domestically the control operator is still responsible for everything that comes out of that station. so even if your friend is just saying hi, if they said something that violated the rules you're the one holding the bag. i dont say that to scare you off letting people talk, just something to keep in mind. i usually just stay right there and kind of monitor the whole thing if i let someone else use the mic.