okay so i passed my general exam like 3 months ago and ive been mostly just listening on HF since then. im finally ready to actually transmit but im getting confused reading part 97 because the band charts everyone posts online all look slightly different and i dont know which one to trust.

my main question is about 40 meters specifically — i see some charts that say general class gets like 7.175 to 7.300 for phone and others that say something different. also is there a rule about power limits that changes depending on the band or is 1500 watts just always the max across the board? i have a used IC-7300 and i dont want to accidentally operate somewhere i shouldnt be.

sorry if this is a dumb question, i looked at the actual FCC part 97 document and it honestly made my eyes glaze over

not a dumb question at all, the band charts can be confusing because some of them are outdated or just wrong. the ARRL website has a PDF that gets updated and thats probably your best bet for an accurate one. for 40m phone as a general youre looking at 7.175 to 7.300 MHz, the extra class guys get a bit more down toward 7.125.

on power — yeah 1500 watts is the general max under part 97.313 but theres a catch, you're supposed to use the minimum power necessary to make the contact. nobody really runs legal limit all the time anyway and on 40m with an IC-7300 youre probably fine at 100 watts for most things. just stay in your allocation and you'll be good. the FCC isnt out there hunting down new generals for accidentally wandering 2 kHz.

yeah I went through the same thing when i upgraded. what helped me was just downloading the actual ARRL band plan chart and printing it out and taping it next to my radio. sounds old fashioned but i still reference it. also worth knowing that the band plan is slightly different from the actual FCC rules — the band plan has like gentlemans agreements about where CW vs phone goes but only the FCC allocations are legally binding per part 97. so like nobody is going to cite you for doing phone at 7.200 even though some people get grumpy about it