ok so i just upgraded to general a few weeks ago and im trying to figure out the 40m band but honestly the band plan stuff is confusing me more than i expected. like i know theres a difference between what the FCC says you can do and what the band plan says you should do but i cant tell which one actually matters or if ill get in trouble for ignoring the band plan part.

also someone at my club said something about staying away from band edges and i dont really understand why. like if 7.125 is legal why would i not want to operate there. and whats the deal with 7.3 being the top, is that a hard stop or is there some wiggle room. sorry if this is obvious stuff just trying to figure it out before i get on the air and do something dumb

so the band plan vs the license thing is actually a pretty common point of confusion. the FCC allocations are the law, full stop, if you operate outside those you can actually get in trouble. the band plan is more like a gentlemens agreement the amateur community came up with so everyone isnt stepping on each other, its not enforceable but ignoring it will definitely get you some choice words on the air from the old timers.

the band edge thing is about your signal not just your carrier. if youre on 7.300 and youre running SSB your upper sideband is going to splash above 7.300 which is outside the allocation. so the rule of thumb a lot of people use is stay 3 or 4 khz inside the edge to be safe, especially on ssb. some people say more some say less depends who you ask. on the lower end same idea, generals on 40m phone start at 7.175 so dont just plunk yourself right on 7.175 either give yourself a little room. its not that complicated once you think about it in terms of the whole signal rather than just the dial frequency

yeah i went through the same thing when i upgraded. one thing that helped me was just downloading the ARRL band plan pdf and keeping it open when i was getting started. its not the law but pretty much everyone follows it so if you stick to it you wont accidentally land in the middle of the DX window or whatever and have people annoyed at you. 40m can be kind of a zoo especially at night so just listen for a while before you transmit and youll get a feel for where stuff happens