so ive been licensed for about 8 months now (general class) and im still pretty fuzzy on some of the Part 97 stuff. like i know the basics, dont transmit music, identify every 10 minutes, whatever. but theres some grey areas that are really confusing me and i cant find a straight answer online without getting buried in legal language.

for example, my buddy and i were doing some simplex stuff last weekend and we went like 12 or 13 minutes between IDs because we were just having a conversation and forgot. is that actually a violation or is there like a grace period or something? i dont want to get in trouble but also it seems like the kind of thing the FCC wouldnt really care about for two guys chatting on 2m.

also whats the deal with third party traffic? i let my wife say hi to his wife over the radio and someone on the repeater later told me i wasnt supposed to do that without some kind of agreement? i have no idea what that even means. any help appreciated

okay so the ID thing — technically yes you're supposed to ID at least every 10 minutes and at the end of the transmission, that's straight from 97.119. but realistically nobody is sitting there with a stopwatch and the FCC has way bigger fish to fry than two hams going 13 minutes on a simplex freq. that said, get in the habit of doing it right because on a busy repeater people will notice and some guys will say something.

the third party traffic thing is different and honestly a lot of newer hams get tripped up on this. third party just means someone who isnt a licensed amateur is communicating via your station. your wife saying hi is technically third party traffic. within the US that's generally fine as long as you're supervising and everything, Part 97.115 covers it. the agreement thing your repeater friend mentioned is for third party traffic to foreign countries — some countries have treaties with the US that allow it, some don't, and if the country you're talking to doesn't have an agreement with the US you cant pass third party traffic there at all. domestically you're probably fine, just make sure you stay in control of the station.

yeah the third party thing tripped me up too when i first got my ticket. i think the rule is mostly aimed at like, someone using your radio to conduct business or something sketchy, not your wife saying hello. but definitely read 97.115 when you get a chance, its actually not that hard to understand once you look at it directly instead of trying to find a summary somewhere.