ok so i just got my technician a few months ago and ive been listening a lot before actually transmitting much. i notice some people on the repeater use alpha bravo charlie and all that but some guys just say whatever they want like they'll say A as in apple or whatever comes to mind. my elmer told me i should learn the proper NATO ones but i guess im wondering if its actually required or just a convention thing. like will i get in trouble if i say something different. also sometimes i hear people on HF doing really weird ones that sound almost like jokes, is that a thing or am i misreading the situation

not required by the FCC or anything, its just a convention that most operators use because those specific words were chosen to be distinct from each other even with bad audio or interference. like november and november both start the same but the point is they dont sound like other letters when you're copying through static. that said you'll hear plenty of old timers who use their own phonetics out of habit and nobody really cares on a local repeater. on HF especially contest ops sometimes use non-standard ones that just punch through better, heard guys say lima as london or something like that. just learn the standard ones first so you dont confuse people, then do whatever once you get a feel for whats working

yeah the joke ones are definitely a thing lol. theres a guy on our local net who always says X as in xylophone and everyone kind of groans. but seriously on something like a traffic net or emcomm stuff you really want to stick to the standard phonetics because the whole point is the other person shouldnt have to think about what letter you mean. i messed up a callsign relay once because i used a non-standard one and the net control wrote down the wrong letter. felt pretty dumb. so like casual chat on a repeater whatever but anything where accuracy matters just use NATO