ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now and i finally got my general and im trying to figure out where i can actually transmit on 40 meters. ive looked at the arrl band plan and also the license chart on the fcc website and they dont really match up exactly and im not sure which one im supposed to follow. like the arrl thing shows certain segments for ssb and cw and digital but is that actually a legal thing or just like a suggestion? and also someone on another forum said you shouldnt operate too close to the band edge because of sideband splatter or something and i dont even fully understand what that means. i have a ft-891 and i was just tuning around and found a guy having a qso around 7.280 and jumped in but then someone told me afterward i shouldnt have been there. i wasnt sure if that was a band plan thing or a license class thing or what. just trying to not step on anyone or do something wrong

ok so first thing -- the arrl band plan is voluntary, it's not law. the actual legal limits are the fcc part 97 rules for your license class. as a general you can use phone on 40m from 7.175 to 7.300 MHz, anything below that is cw/digital territory and you'd be out of your privileges if you tried voice there. so 7.280 is totally fine for you license wise.

the band edge thing is real though. when you transmit USB your signal actually extends upward in frequency from your dial reading, so if youre on 7.300 and your voice peaks hit 7.303 or something you're technically outside the band. most people stay 3 or 4 kHz below the upper edge just to be safe. same idea on the low end of your allowed range.

the arrl band plan just tries to keep things organized so cw guys aren't getting steamrolled by ssb stations and vice versa. nobody can make you follow it but if you ignore it people will let you know, usually not very nicely lol

yeah i had the same confusion when i upgraded. the band plan stuff took me a while to figure out honestly. one thing i'll add is that 7.200 to 7.300 is also where a lot of the DX comes in from outside the US, stations in other regions have different allocations and sometimes that creates a mess around certain freqencies. like around 7.200 you'll sometimes hear europeans who are operating in their own legal allocation but it overlaps with where US generals can be. not really something you can do anything about just kind of interesting to know

anyway dont stress too much about it, just listen before you transmit and if the band plan says that chunk is supposed to be ssb then stick to ssb. you'll figure out the unwritten rules pretty quick just from operating