ok so i just got my technician license a couple months ago and ive been getting on the local repeater here and there. my elmer told me to use phonetics when giving my callsign but honestly i see people on there who just say their call normally without spelling it out and nobody seems to care. so when are you actually supposed to use phonetics? like is it every single time or just when its noisy or the other person asks you to repeat? i dont want to sound like im overthinking it but i also dont want to be that guy who does it wrong on air. my call has a couple letters that sound similar so maybe thats why he told me to use them but idk

yeah its one of those things thats kind of situational honestly. on a clear local repeater with strong signals people often just say their call straight and thats fine, nobody is going to come down on you for it. but phonetics really earn their keep when conditions are rough, or youre working HF with some QRM, or your call has letters that get confused easily like B and D or M and N. the NATO alphabet exists specifically because those ambiguities cause real problems. if your call has something like a B or a C or an N in it id just get in the habit of using phonetics all the time so it becomes automatic. some guys never use them on the local repeater and thats kind of accepted practice, but if you jump on HF youll be glad you drilled them. the thing is when you panic trying to remember what F is youre going to key up and just go blank, so just learn them now and use them whenever you feel like it wont hurt anything.

im in the same boat as you more or less, been licensed about a year. what i do is i just use phonetics every time because i kept second guessing myself otherwise. foxtrot uniform november or whatever. after a while it just comes out automatically and you stop thinking about it. the NATO ones are the standard and people recognize them immediately, i tried making up my own once early on because i blanked and the other op asked me to repeat twice lol so just stick with the real ones