so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i still get kind of confused about when youre supposed to use the NATO phonetics versus just saying the letter normally. like if someone asks me to confirm a callsign do i always spell it out phonetically or is that just for when conditions are bad? i was on a local 2m repeater the other day and said my call just normally and then the net control asked me to say it again using phonetics and i felt kind of dumb but also wasnt sure if that was just a net control preference thing or like an actual rule

also sometimes i hear people using weird phonetics that arent the standard ones, like i heard someone say "sugar" for S the other day and i thought that was just wrong but maybe im the one whos wrong? basically just trying to figure out if theres a correct way to do this or if its more of a situational thing

The short answer is there's no hard rule that says you MUST use NATO phonetics every single time, but it's considered good practice especially on nets or when conditions are anything less than perfect. Net controls often ask for phonetics because it just makes logging easier and reduces repeats, has nothing to do with you doing something wrong.

As for the non-standard phonetics, yeah that's a thing. Some older ops grew up using a different set before NATO got standardized and they just never switched. You'll hear "sugar" for S or "king" for K sometimes, especially from guys who've been doing this for decades. It's not technically wrong in the sense that it'll still get the message across, but if you're ever doing anything formal like emcomm or a directed net the NATO set is what you want to stick with. Easier for everyone and especially for anyone who might not have English as their first language since the NATO words were kind of picked with that in mind.

yeah i had the same confusion when i started lol. honestly i just started using phonetics for everything and then dialing it back when it felt unnecessary, like ragchewing with someone on a clear repeater you dont really need to spell out your whole call every time. but for initial contact or if theres any static or anything i always go phonetic now just out of habit

the sugar thing i still hear around here too, one of the old timers at our club uses completely different ones and honestly after a while you just kind of learn what he means