Mike that seems strange to me. Whenever I walked onto a job the radios always got turned down and the hard hats were put on, even though I had never mentioned either one of them. I guess that is a thing with some inspectors.
Radio silence must be one of the 'rules' that a lot of sparkies paid attention to! I see the same results as what Greg said above. Personally, I have no issue with radios.
As to 'nastygrams', I have written a few recently, and yes, a lot of people get a 'copy'; but...it gets results a heck of a lot quicker than a 'sweet' memo/letter. Recent 'issues' have been to another new crop of solar (resi) installers who lack basic 'clues'. (This has to go into the Permit rant thread).
My wife says the radio issue comes up a lot when "new construction" guys move into "retail" where they are in a customer's home or a built out neighborhood.
"Leave the radio in the truck, pull up your pants and don't pee in the bushes"