so ive been licensed for about 4 months now and i mostly do HF on 40m, sometimes 20m when the band cooperates. my elmer told me to always use phonetics when giving my callsign but then i hear plenty of guys on the air who just say their call normally without spelling it out. like theyll just say their call once and move on. is there a rule about this or is it more of a courtesy thing? i dont want to be that guy who overdoes it and sounds like a robot reading off an alphabet chart every single transmission but i also dont want to get a notice of violation or whatever for not IDing properly. also sometimes i forget what the NATO word is for a letter and i just make something up in the moment, is that a problem

No rule that says you have to use phonetics every single time, it's more situational. On a clear quiet net with a strong signal you can just say your call and everyone hears it fine. But when conditions are rough, there's QRM, or your signal is marginal, phonetics make a huge difference because letters like B, D, E, P, T, V all sound almost identical in noise. The real purpose is making sure the other station copies your call correctly so they can log it right.

As for making up words when you forget the NATO one, honestly most people don't care that much on casual ragchews. You'll hear guys say things like "Nebraska" instead of November or whatever. In a contest or during emergency traffic handling that's a different story, you want standard phonetics because the person on the other end is copying fast and the standard words are chosen specifically because they sound distinct from each other. Just keep practicing and it'll become second nature pretty quickly.

yeah same boat when i started, i used to panic and say like "Q for... uh... Queen" and just hope for the best lol. honestly just tape a phonetic alphabet cheat sheet next to your radio until you have it down. took me maybe two weeks of being on the air before i stopped needing it. the NATO ones really are better than just making stuff up btw, like "Sierra" vs "Sugar" sounds different enough that it matters when the band is noisy