so ive been on HF for about 8 months now and i notice some guys always go full NATO phonetics for everything and some guys just say the letter. like sometimes ill hear someone say their callsign and just spell it out normally without alpha bravo whatever. is there like an unwritten rule about when you use them? i mostly do it on SSB when signals are rough but on a clear local repeater it feels a bit overkill to say november-seven-whiskey-echo-romeo when everyone can hear me just fine. or am i wrong about that and you should just always use them

pretty much what you said yeah. on a clear FM repeater where everyone hears you 59 its a bit much to go through the whole phonetic thing for every single letter, most folks around here just say the letters. but on HF especially when the band is marginal or there's QRM you really want phonetics because certain letters just blend together over the air - B and D and E and P all sound way too similar when there's static. i think the general rule most elmers would give you is use your judgment, if theres any doubt go phonetics. contesting is a whole other thing, guys get so fast they basically invent their own shorthand anyway

yeah i asked the same thing when i was starting out. someone told me the NATO alphabet exists because people kept misunderstanding letters in bad conditions and it became standardized so everyone globally would use the same words. like a Russian station and an American station can both know that Whiskey means W even if their English isnt great. so technically you should use it whenever theres any chance of confusion but honestly on a local repeater nobody cares. i still mess up sometimes and say something dumb like uh... november seven... Washington? and then have to correct myself lol