ok so I passed my general last month and ive been trying to figure out where I can actually transmit on 40 meters. I looked up the band plan but honestly it just made me more confused. like there's the FCC allocation which shows what frequencies are legal, but then there's also the ARRL band plan which seems different? and people keep saying stuff about band edges and not operating too close to them but I dont really understand why that matters.

also someone at the club told me to stay away from 7.200 and 7.125 but didnt explain why really. is that just a convention thing or is there an actual rule? im using an ic-7300 if that matters

so the short version is the FCC allocation is what's legally binding for US hams, and for general class on 40m you've got phone privileges from 7.175 up to 7.300 MHz. the ARRL band plan is just a gentlemen's agreement on top of that, trying to keep different modes from stepping on each other — it's not law but most people follow it.

the band edge thing is actually important and your IC-7300 is relevant here. when you're doing SSB your signal has bandwidth, not just a single frequency. so if you're transmitting on 7.300 which is the upper edge of your allocation, the upper sidebands of your signal can actually spill outside the band and that's an FCC violation. most people say stay at least 3 kHz inside the edge to be safe, so like 7.297 or lower for USB.

7.200 and 7.125 aren't magic numbers per se but 7.200 has historically been a pretty busy calling frequency and you'll just get a lot of traffic there. nothing wrong with listening around those spots first before you transmit anywhere honestly.

yeah the band edge thing tripped me up too when I was a new general. I actually got a polite but kinda firm call from someone after I was operating on 7.299 and apparently my audio was going outside the band. the 7300 has that ALC meter and it's worth watching — overdriving the mic gain will widen your signal and make the band edge problem worse.

also just as a heads up, 7.125 is kind of an informal dx window in that part of the band and people get touchy about domestic QSOs in there, especially during a contest weekend. not a rule just... yeah people will let you know lol