ok so i passed my general a few weeks ago and ive been trying to figure out where i can actually transmit on 40 meters. i know theres a chart somewhere but every time i look it up i get a different answer or the chart is from like 2009 and i dont know if its still current. somebody at the club told me generals can use 7.225 to 7.300 for phone but then i saw something about 7.175 being ok too and now im just lost. also whats the deal with the band edges, like can i literally transmit right at 7.300 or is that considered bad practice. sorry if this is a dumb question im still figuring all this out

not a dumb question at all, this trips up a lot of new generals. so the FCC allocation for general on 40m phone is 7.175 to 7.300 MHz, extras get a little more below that. the 7.225 thing your club guy mentioned is probably just where most of the activity tends to cluster, not an actual license limit.

as for the band edge question -- yeah technically 7.300 is the top of your allocation but you really dont want to be parking your carrier right there. the issue is your signal has sidebands and if youre running SSB your actual audio could be spilling above 7.300 which puts you out of band. most people just stay a few kHz below the edge to be safe, like 7.295 or so as an upper limit in practice. some rigs have a band edge lockout feature but i wouldnt rely on that exclusively

yeah what he said. also worth downloading the arrl band plan pdf directly from arrl.org, thats usually the most up to date version for us allocations. just keep in mind the arrl band plan and the fcc rules arent exactly the same thing -- the arrl one is more like gentlemans agreement stuff about where certain modes hang out, the fcc part is the actual legal limit you cant cross. both matter but for different reasons