so i've been licensed about 8 months now and i still get kind of confused about when i'm supposed to spell things out with phonetics versus just saying the letter normally. like if someone asks for my callsign i just say it normally but then sometimes the other person spells theirs back to me using nato phonetics and i feel like i should be doing that too but also it feels weird to say "whiskey" and "kilo" when i could just... say the letters

is there like an actual rule about this or is it just a custom thing people do. i mostly operate on 2m fm and HF SSB if that makes any difference. also sometimes i try to use phonetics and i blank on one of the letters mid-sentence which is embarassing

Yeah theres no hard rule on FM repeaters honestly, most people just say their callsign normally and thats fine. Where phonetics really start to matter is on HF especially SSB when there's QRM or the signal is weak and letters like B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V all sound almost identical. you ever tried to figure out if someone said "B" or "V" or "D" in a pile-up? nightmare. so phonetics just eliminate that ambiguity.

The blanking thing happens to everyone starting out, dont sweat it. I used to stumble on X every single time (xray, right, but your brain just goes blank). Honestly the fastest way to get it down is just to do it. Say your callsign in phonetics out loud in the car or whatever until it comes out automatically. after a while your brain just maps the letter straight to the word without having to think.

on 2m fm most folks around here dont bother with phonetics unless the repeater is noisy or something, but i will say when i started doing any kind of digital logging or passing traffic for nets they expect you to use proper NATO phonetics and get a little annoyed if you make up your own. i said "New York" once for N on a traffic net and the net control just kinda paused and repeated it back using November and i got the hint lol