so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i mostly do HF, some 40m and 20m SSB. I know the NATO phonetic alphabet and i use it sometimes but im not really sure when its like... required vs just a good idea. like sometimes i hear guys just say their callsign normally without spelling it out phonetically and other times people go through the whole thing every single time. is there a rule about it or is it just whatever sounds clearer? my callsign has some letters in it that sound similar so i usually do spell it out but i dont always know if im doing it at the right times. also is it rude to ask someone to repeat their call phonetically if they didnt use phonetics the first time? i dont want to come across weird on air

no hard rule on it for normal HF contacts, its more just good practice especially when conditions are rough or theres QRM. the general thing is if theres any chance of ambiguity, use phonetics. letters like M and N, B and D, S and F can all sound identical when the band is marginal. most experienced ops will phonetically ID at least once at the start of a QSO and then just use the short call after that once its established.

and yeah absolutely nothing wrong with asking someone to go phonetic if you didnt catch their call. just say something like "please say again callsign phonetically" and any decent operator will do it without a second thought. happens all the time especially when working DX where english might not be their first language and accents can make it tricky. dont stress about it

honestly i just use phonetics whenever im not 100% sure the other guy got it. on a clear local contact sure maybe skip it, but on a pile up or when the band is doing weird things i always go full phonetics. lost a few contacts early on because i was lazy about it and we went back and forth like four times trying to sort out the callsign. not worth it. also some guys use non-NATO phonetics which drives me a little crazy but thats a whole other thing lol