ok so i just upgraded to general last month and im trying to figure out where i can actually transmit on 40 meters. i know there are portions for technicians and extra class and whatever but every chart i look at seems slightly different and some of them are from like 2009 so i dont know if theyre still accurate.

my main confusion is around the phone portion — like i know 7.175 to 7.300 is supposed to be where general class phone is but then someone at the club said something about staying away from the band edges and i didnt really understand why. is there some rule about not transmitting right at 7.300 or is that just like an informal thing people do? and what about digital modes, where does that fit in on 40

yeah the band edge thing trips up a lot of newly upgraded generals. so the deal is your carrier frequency needs to stay within your allocation but your signal itself takes up bandwidth. if youre doing SSB on 7.300 your voice peaks can splash outside the amateur allocation which is a no-no and the FCC does not care that you were "close enough". most people just stay at least 3 khz inside the edge so like 7.297 at the highest for USB on 40 phone. some guys are more conservative than that.

for digital, the ARRL band plan puts a lot of that down around 7.080-7.125 area but thats not legally mandated, its just where people agreed to hang out. FT8 in particular has pretty much settled around 7.074 which is where everyone just kind of ended up. the actual FCC allocation for generals on 40 phone starts at 7.175 so everything below that on phone youre not supposed to be doing as a general. the extra class guys have the whole band down to 7.000.

just went through this same thing a few months ago honestly. the arrl website has a band plan chart thats reasonably up to date, that helped me more than any random pdf i kept finding. one thing i still get confused about is whether the band edge rule is actually in the regs or if its just courtesy — i think its both kind of? like you technically cant splash outside your privileges but also operators just try not to crowd the edge as a general habit