ok so i just upgraded to general a few weeks ago and im still trying to wrap my head around the frequency allocations. i know generals get more privileges but every time i look at the band plan chart it just kind of blurs together for me. specifically on 40 meters, like i know there's a phone portion and a cw portion but where does one actually start and the other end? and how close to the band edge is too close? i've heard people say you should never transmit right at the edge but nobody really explains why or how far away you should stay. is 7.125 ok for ssb or is that still too low? i feel like i keep second guessing myself before i even key up

so for general on 40m your ssb phone privileges start at 7.175 MHz and go up to 7.300, thats the US allocation anyway. the 7.125 you mentioned is actually still in the CW/digital portion for generals so yeah you'd want to stay out of there for phone. advanced and extra class guys get a bit more room down lower but as a general just stay above 7.175 for voice and youre fine.

as for band edges, the reason people warn you off them is your signal has sidebands that extend above and below your dial frequency. on SSB upper sideband your actual transmitted audio goes UP from where your dial reads, so if you're sitting right at 7.300 your voice is spilling outside the allocation. most people say stay at least 3 kHz inside the edge to be safe, some say more if you have a wide filter or older radio that isnt super clean. just dont park on 7.300 and wonder why people are giving you grief

yeah what he said, and honestly the arrl band plan chart on their website is a lot easier to read than some of the third party ones floating around. i spent way too long confused by a chart i found on some random site that had like six color codes and a tiny font. just go straight to the source

one thing i'll add is that 40m in particular can get pretty crowded especially in the evening and there are kind of informal gentleman's agreements about certain frequencies being used for nets or dx windows and stuff. nothing official but if you plunk down on 7.200 on a weekend night you might get a friendly or not so friendly nudge