so ive been licensed for about 4 months now and i mostly hang around on 2m FM doing local repeater stuff. every time i key up i give my callsign and sometimes i say it phonetically and sometimes i dont, just depends on how the qso is going i guess. but ive been hearing some guys on there who ALWAYS do full NATO phonetics every single time no matter what, even on a clear quiet repeater where everyone can hear fine. like they'll say their call and then spell the whole thing out phonetically even if they just talked 30 seconds ago.

is that actually required or is it just a habit some people have? i looked at part 97 and couldnt really find anything specific about phonetics being mandatory. feels like overkill sometimes but i dont want to be doing something wrong either. also on HF is it different? i havent gotten on HF yet but planning to once i get my general.

Not required at all, at least not in the US under part 97. The rules just say you gotta ID with your callsign, doesn't specify phonetics. Phonetics are a tool, not a law. On a clear local repeater where everybody already knows you, saying your call once normally is totally fine.

That said on HF it becomes way more useful, especially on SSB where the audio can be rough or you're working stations far away who aren't familiar with your call. I've had people completely mishear my suffix even on a decent band day so I tend to use phonetics more there just out of habit. DX especially — if you're trying to work some rare station and the pileup is a mess, you want your call to be unmistakable.

The guys who do it every single time on a local repeater are probably just old habits from HF or maybe they came up through EMCOMM training where phonetics are drilled pretty hard. Not wrong, just... yeah, a bit much for a quiet 2m ragchew.

honestly i was wondering the same thing when i started. what i heard from someone at my club was that its just good practice to at least use them once when you first call CQ or join a net so people can copy your call correctly, but after that its up to you. i mostly just say my call normal unless someone asks me to repeat or the signal sounds rough.

one thing i noticed is some of the nets i check into are pretty strict about phonetics even on VHF, like the net control will actually come back and ask you to re-ID phonetically if you just rattled off your call fast. so i guess it just depends on who's running things