so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and i still feel kind of awkward with the phonetic alphabet thing. like i know the NATO ones, Alpha Bravo Charlie etc, but i never really know when im supposed to use them vs just saying the letter normally. on 2m repeaters locally everyone seems to just say their call letters straight without phonetics most of the time but then on HF i hear people being very deliberate about spelling everything out phonetically. is there like an actual rule or is it just kind of a feel thing depending on conditions? also i heard someone use "America" instead of "Alpha" the other day and that threw me off, didnt know if that was an older thing or what

yeah the America/Adam/etc thing is the old "able baker" phonetics from before NATO standardized everything in the 50s. you still hear some old timers using them, mostly guys who learned on AM back in the day. not wrong exactly but it can cause confusion if the other station isnt familiar with it.

as for when to use them -- honestly its just conditions and context. on a clear local repeater with a strong signal theres no real need to phonetic out your whole callsign every time, people can hear you fine. but on HF especially when the band is marginal or youre working DX, phonetics are genuinely useful because certain letters just sound identical through static and QRM. B and D, M and N, S and F... they all smear together. so most operators just develop a feel for it. if you have to repeat yourself, thats usually a sign you shouldve gone with phonetics from the start

dont stress too much about it honestly. i messed this up constantly my first year. one thing that helped me was just listening to how other people handled it before jumping in. and if someones copying your callsign for a log or something like in a net, always phonetic it, full stop. saves so much back and forth