ok so i just upgraded to general last month and im trying to figure out where i can actually operate on 40 meters. i looked at the arrl band plan chart but honestly it kind of confuses me more than it helps. like theres the fcc allocation which is the legal part and then theres the band plan which is kind of a gentleman's agreement thing? or am i totally wrong about that

also i keep hearing people say dont operate too close to the band edge because of frequency drift or something but my radio shows my frequency pretty precisely so does that still apply. i have an ic-7300 if that matters

mostly i want to do some ssb and maybe some digital modes eventually and i just dont want to accidentally transmit somewhere i shouldnt be

yeah you basically got it right. the fcc part is the actual legal limit, so as a general on 40m ssb you can operate from 7.175 up to 7.300 mhz. below 7.175 is extra class territory for phone. the band plan stuff like where the dx window is or where nets hang out, thats all voluntary but people will definitely get on you if you set up in the middle of the dx calling frequency not knowing what it is.

on the band edge thing -- even with a modern radio like the 7300 you want to leave some margin. the rule of thumb a lot of guys use is stay at least 3 khz inside the edge on ssb because your signal has bandwidth, its not just a single point. if you're showing 7.300 on the dial your upper sideband signal is actually going several khz above that depending on your filter settings. so 7.297 or so is a safer upper limit. for digital modes like ft8 theres pretty established spots, 40m ft8 is 7.074 and the whole community basically self-organizes around that so you'll figure it out fast.

i was in the same boat not long ago honestly. one thing that helped me was just listening for a while before transmitting anywhere. like i spent probably two weeks just tuning around 40m at different times of day and night and you start to get a feel for where the activity actually is vs what the chart says. the digital stuff especially kind of clusters on its own and its pretty obvious once you hear it.

the band edge thing tripped me up too. somebody on another forum explained it to me as -- your carrier might be at 7.298 but the voice audio is riding on top of that so the actual rf is spreading up from there. caught me off guard the first time i thought about it that way