ok so i just got my technician license last month and ive been trying to figure out exactly what i can and cant do. i know technicians are limited but the band plan stuff is confusing me. like i was reading part 97 and i think i can use some HF but only certain modes on certain bands? and then someone at my club said something about phone privileges and i got even more confused.

my main question is whether i can talk on 10 meters with just a tech license or do i need to upgrade first. also is there somewhere that explains all this in plain english because the actual FCC document is kind of hard to parse

yeah the privileges chart is genuinely confusing the first time you look at it. so as a tech you do get some HF — you can use CW on a small slice of 80, 40, 15, and 10 meters. but for phone (voice) on HF you only get 10 meters, specifically 28.300 to 28.500 MHz for SSB. that part trips a lot of new hams up because they think they cant touch HF at all with a tech.

the ARRL band plan chart is way easier to read than the actual part 97 text, i'd just look that up. it color codes everything by license class. the FCC rules themselves are technically the law but for day to day operating the ARRL chart is what most people use to sanity check themselves before transmitting somewhere new.

i was in the same spot like six months ago lol. what helped me was just looking up the arrl frequency chart and bookmarking it. also honestly just upgrading to general opens up so much more that it might be worth just studying for that next, the test isnt that bad