ok so i passed my technician exam about 3 weeks ago and i got my callsign but im still pretty fuzzy on what frequencies im actually allowed to use. i know i have VHF and UHF pretty much wide open but someone at the club meeting last week mentioned something about HF privileges for techs and i didnt want to look dumb so i just nodded along. i went home and tried to look it up in part 97 and honestly it kind of reads like a legal document which i guess it is but its hard to follow. does anyone have like a plain english breakdown of what techs can do on HF? i thought we couldnt touch HF at all but apparently theres some phone segment on 10 meters? and what about CW, i heard techs can do CW on some of the lower bands but im not sure which ones. just dont want to transmit somewhere i shouldnt be

yeah techs do get a slice of HF, its not much but its something. on 10 meters you get phone privileges from 28.300 to 28.500 MHz which is actually pretty decent when the band is open. for CW you can operate on portions of 80, 40, and 15 meters i believe, 28.000 to 28.300 on 10 for CW too. theres also 10 meter data/RTTY. the ARRL has a frequency allocation chart that is way easier to read than the actual part 97 text, i would just google that and print it out honestly. the raw CFR text is brutal to parse if youre not used to legalese. main thing to just remember is always check before you key up, and if youre ever unsure about a band just stick to what you know until you can verify

i was in the same boat when i first got my ticket lol. the ARRL band plan chart saved me, seriously just download it. also once you get comfortable maybe think about going for general, the upgrade exam isnt that bad and it opens up so much more HF. i did mine like 2 months after my tech and it was worth it