so ive been listening to a lot of nets lately trying to get comfortable before i actually key up and i noticed some guys use the standard NATO stuff like alpha bravo charlie and others just kind of... make up their own? like one guy said "A for apple" and another said "A for adam" and i wasnt sure if one of those is wrong or if its just preference

im studying for my tech right now and the book has the NATO alphabet in it but doesnt really say if its required or just recommended. is there any rule about this or do people just use whatever they grew up with

no hard rule about it in the regs, at least not for amateur - maritime and aviation are a different story. but the whole point of the NATO phonetics is that they were specifically chosen because they dont sound like each other over a noisy or distorted signal. "adam" and "aviation" could get confused, "alpha" and "alfa" less likely to. the old "able baker charlie" set that the US military used before NATO was adopted had similar problems on poor circuits.

you'll hear guys use all kinds of stuff on the air. some old timers still use the old ARRL phonetics or just whatever comes out of their mouth. mostly fine on a clear local repeater, starts to matter more when youre working someone weak or through a pile of QRM. i'd just stick with NATO for now, it becomes automatic pretty quick and nobody will ever give you grief for using it.

yeah what he said basically. i used to mix them up all the time when i first got on the air, kept saying "N for november" then "O for oscar" then suddenly "P for... papa? peter?" and just fumbling around. just drilled the list for like a week and now it comes out without thinking. honestly the harder part for me was remembering to slow down and actually say each letter separately instead of just spelling fast and hoping they got it lol