so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i notice some guys on the local repeater just say their callsign letters normally and some do the full NATO phonetics every single time. like is there a rule about this or is it just personal preference? i usually do phonetics for my suffix because it has some letters that sound alike but my prefix feels obvious enough i dont bother. my elmer told me to always use phonetics but then i hear plenty of experienced guys not doing it and im confused about when it actually matters

also slightly different question but does anyone else find some of the standard phonetics kind of awkward to say fast? november and uniform especially, i always feel like im slowing everything down

yeah theres no hard rule that says you MUST use phonetics every single transmission, its more of a best practice thing especially when conditions are rough or theres any chance of confusion. on a local repeater with clear audio and people who know you, just rattling off your call letters is totally fine. where it really matters is HF, working DX, nets where ops might not be familiar with you, or any kind of emergency traffic. your elmer wasnt wrong but theyre probably coming from an emcomm or formal net background where phonetics are basically mandatory.

as for november and uniform feeling slow, you get used to it. some guys shorten things up a bit in casual QSOs but in a contest or a pileup you want clean phonetics or youll just have to repeat yourself anyway which wastes more time

honestly i went through the same confusion early on. what clicked for me was thinking about it from the other guys perspective - if theres any QRM or the band is noisy, B D E G P T V all blur together and phonetics just cut through that. on the repeater when everythings clear it doesnt matter much but try working SSB on 40m at night and you'll understand real fast why november is worth the extra syllable lol