ok so i just upgraded to general last month and im trying to figure out where i can actually operate on 40 meters. i know there are band edges and i know you're not supposed to go below like 7.125 or something but honestly the band plan stuff is really confusing to me. like is the band plan the actual law or is it just a suggestion? and i keep hearing people say 'stay away from the band edge' but how close is too close? my radio shows 7.000 to 7.300 as the whole band but i know i cant use all of that as a general. somebody at the club meeting mentioned something about the region 2 band plan but i didnt totally follow what he was saying. just trying to not step on anyones toes or worse get in trouble with the FCC

good question and dont feel bad, this trips up a lot of newly upgraded generals. so the short version is: the FCC Part 97 rules are the actual law, the ARRL band plan is basically a gentlemans agreement on top of that. for 40m as a general you can do phone from 7.175 to 7.300 MHz, that is your legal phone allocation. below 7.175 down to 7.025 is CW and data for generals, and 7.000 to 7.025 is extra class only for CW.

now the band edge thing is real and important. the rule is your signal has to stay within the allocation, not just your carrier. so if youre running SSB your carrier needs to be far enough from the edge that your sidebands dont spill over. most people say stay at least 3 kHz inside the edge to be safe, so for upper sideband on 40m phone you wouldnt want to go below about 7.178 to leave yourself room. some radios also have a little frequency error so that gives you some buffer too.

the region 2 thing your club buddy mentioned is about ITU regions, north and south america are region 2 and the 40m allocation is a bit different than region 1 which is europe. thats why sometimes you hear european stations down around 7.100 on phone, that is legal for them but not for us.

yeah what the other guy said is pretty much it. i'll just add that i learned this the hard way early on, i was operating right at 7.175 thinking i was fine and somebody came on and told me my signal was splashing below. wasnt intentional but still embarrassing. now i just dont go below 7.180 on phone, gives me enough cushion and i dont have to think about it. also worth downloading the ARRL band plan as a PDF and just keeping it near your radio for a while, i did that for maybe the first year i was a general and it helped a lot