so ive been licensed for about 4 months now, tech class, and im starting to get confused about what im actually allowed to do. like i understand i have HF privileges on 10m but i keep reading different things about what modes are allowed where and honestly part 97 reads like legalese to me

my main question i guess is — is there like a simple breakdown somewhere of what tech licensees can actually do on HF? i was under the impression i could do SSB on 10m but someone at the club meeting said something about it only being in certain segments and i nodded like i understood but i went home and looked it up and now im more confused than before

also semi related, does the FCC actually monitor this stuff? like if i accidentally transmitted in the wrong part of a band is that something that would actually get me in trouble or is it more of a gentlemans agreement type situation

yeah the band plan stuff trips up a lot of new techs. short answer is you do get some 10m privileges — you can do CW on 28.000-28.300 and then SSB and other stuff in the 28.300-28.500 segment. outside of that you're not supposed to be transmitting on HF as a tech. the ARRL has a frequency allocation chart thats way easier to read than the actual part 97 text, i'd just grab that.

as for enforcement — the FCC doesnt have a ton of people actively monitoring every frequency all the time but that doesnt mean nothing ever happens. they do investigate complaints and the ham community itself will sometimes report stuff. i wouldnt rely on the idea that nobody's watching. just stay in the right segments and you're fine, its not that hard once you get the chart in front of you

honestly same boat as you a few months back lol. what helped me was just downloading the actual band chart from arrl.org and printing it out and keeping it near my radio. the part 97 document itself is rough reading, i dont think anyone actually reads it cover to cover unless they're studying for general or something