ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now, tech class, and i keep reading conflicting stuff online about what frequencies i actually have access to. like i understand i have VHF and UHF privileges but then someone at my club said something about HF phone privileges on 10 meters and i didnt even know that was a thing. and then theres all this stuff in part 97 about power limits and emission types and honestly it reads like a legal document which i guess it is but still.

my main question is like... is there a plain english version of what techs can actually do? and also is there some kind of table or something official that spells it out because every website i find seems to have slightly different info and now im not sure whats current. dont want to accidentally transmit somewhere im not supposed to be

yeah the ARRL frequency allocation chart is probably what youre looking for, they publish an updated version and its way easier to read than the actual part 97 text. techs do get a slice of 10m for SSB voice, its 28.300 to 28.500 MHz, but power limited to 200 watts PEP. most new techs dont even know about it which is kind of a shame because 10m can be a lot of fun when the band is open.

the FCC part 97 document itself is at ecfr.gov and it does get updated occasionally so yeah always worth checking the primary source rather than some random blog. section 97.301 has the frequency allocations and 97.313 covers power limits. its dense but once you read it a few times you start to get the structure of how its laid out.

same boat as you when i upgraded, honestly the best thing i did was just download the actual part 97 text and ctrl+f whatever i was looking for. yeah its dry but its not as bad as like actual legal code. also your club probably has an elmer or two who can just walk you through it, thats honestly faster than reading through the whole thing yourself when youre just starting out