ok so i passed my tech a few months ago and ive been listening to a lot of nets and just random QSOs on the local repeater and im noticing that what the rulebook says and what people actually do seems pretty different sometimes. like the FCC says every 10 minutes and at the end of a transmission but i hear people going back and forth for a while without saying their callsign every single time. is that actually fine or are those guys just being sloppy? i dont want to be the guy who does it wrong but i also dont want to be weirdly formal about it if thats not how anyone really operates.

also related — on a net, do you ID when you check in and then again when you talk or just when you check in? the net control on our local ARES net seems to handle it differently each week depending on who's running it and its making me more confused not less lol

The 10 minute rule is actually per transmission series not per individual exchange, so if you and another ham are going back and forth in a conversation you just need to make sure neither of you goes more than 10 minutes without identifying — and then you both ID when you're done. In practice for a short ragchew thats usually just ID at the start, maybe once in the middle if it runs long, and then at the end. Nobody's sitting there with a stopwatch but the spirit of it is pretty easy to follow once you get a feel for it.

For nets it really does vary. Most formal nets the net control will acknowledge you by callsign when you check in and then you ID again if you get a traffic pass or have a comment. Informal nets are more relaxed. Honestly just listen to how the regulars do it on whatever nets you frequent and mirror that — you'll pick it up fast. The fact that you're even asking means you're already ahead of a lot of new hams.

yeah i was confused about the same thing when i started. what helped me was just thinking of it as — would someone tuning in randomly be able to figure out who's talking within the last 10 minutes? if yes youre probably fine. ive heard old timers on HF go like 20 minutes into a contact before they ID again and nobody says anything but technically they should be IDing more. i dont stress about it too much on the repeater because net control usually handles most of it anyway