ok so i passed my technician exam about two months ago and ive been reading through part 97 trying to figure out what im actually allowed to do and honestly its kind of confusing. like i understand i have HF privileges on 10 meters and some other bands but the way the rules are written its hard to tell exactly what modes i can use where. someone at my club said techs can do SSB on 10m but only in certain segments and i thought i could do CW on 40m too but now im second guessing myself. also theres all this stuff about third party traffic and prohibited communications that i dont fully get. i dont want to accidentally do something wrong especially since i just got my license. is there like a plain english version of this somewhere or does someone just wanna break it down for me

yeah part 97 is written in that classic government legalese that makes your eyes glaze over after like two paragraphs. for techs the short version is you get full privileges on everything 50 MHz and up, and then on HF you get a few slices. on 10m you can do phone in the 28.300 to 28.500 segment, and CW plus some digital modes in other parts of 10m. the 40m CW thing — you do get a small window there, 7.025 to 7.125 i believe, CW only. no phone on 40m as a tech though.

the third party traffic rules are basically about whether you can pass messages for non-hams to other countries, and most of that only really matters if youre doing formal traffic nets or trying to pass a message internationally. day to day casual operating you probably wont run into it much.

ARRL has a decent band plan chart that puts it all in a visual format, way easier than reading the actual CFR text. just google ARRL technician privileges and it should come up. that said i'd also just double check the actual part 97.301 and 97.305 sections because those spell out exactly which frequencies and modes, once you kinda know what youre looking for its not as bad

im in basically the same boat passed my tech in the spring and was totally lost on this too. what helped me was the ARRL band plan poster they sell, i just hung it next to my radio so i can check before i transmit anywhere new. also the ham study apps usually have little summaries of this stuff that are easier to read than the actual rules. dont stress too much about making an honest mistake when youre learning, just dont be doing something obviously wrong on purpose and youll be fine