ok so ive been licensed for a few months now (general class) and i keep second guessing myself every time i go to transmit on 40 meters. i understand theres the actual FCC allocation and then theres like the "gentlemans agreement" band plan that the ARRL puts out and they dont always match up exactly which is confusing me

like i know as a general i can do phone starting at 7.175 up to 7.300 but then i keep hearing people say dont operate too close to the band edge because of sideband spreading or something. how far off the band edge should i actually stay? and also is the 7.125 to 7.175 region technically legal for me or is that novice/tech only now, i honestly cant remember what i read in the manual

also separate question kind of - if im running USB and i set my rig to 7.298 am i actually transmitting above 7.300 with the sideband? this is what i dont fully understand

yeah this trips up a lot of new generals, dont feel bad. so the short answer on the band edge thing - when your rig displays 7.298 on USB, the carrier is at 7.298 but your actual audio is going UP from there, so yeah your signal can easily extend to 7.300 or even past it depending on how much audio you're pushing and whether your processor is cranked. most people just stay at 7.295 or below to give themselves some breathing room. some rigs are worse than others about this too.

the 7.125 to 7.175 segment - generals can do CW there but not phone, that part is still restricted to phone starting at 7.175 for generals. at least thats how i understand the current allocation, you should double check the arrl band chart because i might be off by a few khz on the exact edge

the displayed frequency on SSB is the suppressed carrier frequency not the center of your signal, so yeah 7.298 on USB means your voice is going from roughly 7.298 up to maybe 7.301 depending on how high your audio goes. thats why the rule of thumb most ops follow is stay at least 3 khz inside the band edge on the upper end. some guys are more cautious than that especially if theyre running any kind of speech processing which can splatter things around more than you'd expect