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You should always identify yourself when transmitting on any frequency; otherwise you made an illegal transmission. Simply keying the microphone to see if you can hit the repeater with no identification is an illegal transmission. You are not required to identify the call sign of any other station during a conversation, only your own. When you are testing, you also must identify. Simply give your call and say “Testing”. When you have finished testing, give your call and say “Clear” and give your call.

If you have no one in particular to contact and would just like to announce you are available for conversation, simply give your call sign (of course, after first checking to make sure the frequency is not already in use as in the instructions above).

If there is a conversation already in progress and you want to join, simply give your call between transmissions. Courteous operators will leave a suitable amount of time between transmissions and should acknowledge you right away and turn the frequency over to you for you to join. It is preferred not to use the word break to join a conversation, because it is confusing with the words break break, which indicates an emergency. All stations should relinquish the frequency immediately for any station with emergency traffic.

If there is a conversation already in progress and you want to make a short call, follow the instructions as above then ask politely to make a quick call. If you make contact, ask your party if they can move to another frequency. Make your call, then thank everyone for the interruption. Courtesy is always the key to good Amateur Radio practice.