ok so ive been licensed about 4 months now, got my general back in august and ive mostly just been on 2m locally but i finally want to try some HF. my elmer told me to start on 40 meters but when i look up the frequency allocations online i keep finding like 3 different answers depending on what site im on. some say phone starts at 7.175, some say 7.200, and then theres the ARRL band plan thing which seems different from the actual FCC allocation?

also whats the deal with band edges, someone in my local club said i should never operate right at the edge but didnt really explain why. is there like a buffer zone or something i should know about? i dont want to accidentally transmit somewhere im not supposed to

yeah this trips up a lot of new generals, the confusion is real. so the short version is the FCC part 97 is what actually matters legally, and for general class on 40m you get phone privileges from 7.175 to 7.300 MHz. the ARRL band plan is just a gentlemens agreement, nobody is going to fine you for being at 7.201 instead of 7.200 but people generally follow it out of courtesy.

the band edge thing your elmer mentioned is important though. if youre running SSB your signal has sidebands, so if youre on lower sideband and you set your dial to 7.175 your actual transmitted signal is going down below that. most rigs display the suppressed carrier frequency not the actual edge of your signal. so operating right on the lower edge of your allocation means part of your signal might be outside where you're allowed. general rule of thumb most guys use is stay at least 3 kHz inside the edge to be safe, some say more if your audio is wide. its not a hard rule written anywhere its just practical.

also just to add, 40m during the day is kind of rough for domestic contacts anyway, best time to try it is evening into night when the skip starts to come in. i was in the same boat as you when i got my general and spent weeks trying to make contacts at 2pm and getting nowhere. evening is when all the action is, youll hear a ton of stations