so i got my technician license about two months ago and ive been trying to figure out exactly what im allowed to do. i know techs have HF privileges on 10 meters but i keep reading conflicting stuff about what modes are allowed and what power limits apply. like someone at my club said i can do SSB on 10m but then i looked it up and it seems like theres also some CW only portions? and i dont really understand how Part 97 is organized enough to find the answer myself, every time i try reading it i get lost in all the cross references.

also unrelated but kind of related - is there anywhere that just explains the rules in plain english without me having to decode government document formatting. the FCC website is really hard to navigate for this stuff

yeah Part 97 is a beast when you're first starting out, the cross references are genuinely annoying. for tech privileges on HF the short version is you get a small slice of 10m - i think its 28.300 to 28.500 MHz for SSB voice, and you also have some CW and data privileges lower in the band around 28.000 to 28.300 or so. the power limit for techs on HF is 200 watts PEP if i remember right, not the full 1500 that extras can run.

for plain english explanations the ARRL has a summary page that breaks down privileges by license class, thats probably your best starting point before trying to wade through the actual Part 97 text. once you get the general shape of it the regulations start making more sense, they're just not written for humans to read on first pass

im in basically the same boat lol, just got my general last month and im still figuring stuff out. one thing that helped me was the ARRL band plan chart, its like a one page thing you can print out. doesnt replace actually knowing the rules but at least you can see at a glance what goes where