okay so i just got my tech license last month and ive been listening a lot on local repeaters and sometimes guys use the nato phonetic alphabet and sometimes they just say their call sign normally. like one guy will say his call as kilo four whiskey romeo november and another just says K4WRN or whatever. is there a rule about when you have to use them or is it just preference? i thought you had to always use phonetics but maybe im wrong. also sometimes i hear people use weird ones that arent the nato ones, like someone said sugar instead of sierra and it threw me off completely

no hard rule that says you have to use phonetics every time, its more of a practical thing. on a clear local repeater where everyones coming in full quieting you can usually just say your call sign normally and people will catch it fine. phonetics matter more when conditions are rough, like on HF when theres qsb or noise, or when youre trying to get your call into a pileup and the dx station needs to copy you correctly. the NATO alphabet is the standard and most ops know it cold but yeah youll hear regional variations. sugar for sierra is an old one, some guys have been doing it that way for 40 years and theyre not changing. it can be confusing if you dont know what to expect but youll pick it up. the main thing is just be consistent and clear, phonetics are a tool not a requirement

yeah what he said basically. i will say though if youre ever doing any kind of nets, especially formal traffic nets or anything emcomm related, they will expect you to use standard NATO phonetics every single time no exceptions. had a new guy on our ARES net use his own made up ones and the net control had to ask him to repeat his call like three times. not a huge deal but it slows things down. outside of that on casual ragchews nobody really cares