so i passed my tech exam like two months ago and ive been mostly just listening and doing some local repeater stuff but im starting to get confused about what exactly im allowed to do. like i know i have HF privileges on 10m but what about like... digital modes? and can i do CW on more bands than just phone? i looked at part 97 on the FCC website and honestly it was kind of hard to follow for me, theres a lot of legalese in there. also someone at my club told me i can transmit on 60m but only under certain conditions and now im more confused than before. is there like a plain english version of all this somewhere or does somebody just know off the top of their head what techs can actually do? dont want to accidentally operate outside my privileges and get in trouble

yeah part 97 is a lot to take in all at once, dont stress too much. for tech privileges the ARRL has a frequency/privileges chart that lays it out pretty clearly, way better than trying to read the actual CFR. for HF as a tech you get CW on certain portions of 80, 40, 15 and 10 meters, plus phone and image on 10m above 28.3 MHz. the 60m thing is a bit of a special case, there are only like 5 specific channels and you have to use USB and keep your power down, its in 97.303 i think. digital modes on HF as a tech are also allowed in some of those same CW sub-bands. honestly the easiest thing is just download the band plan chart from ARRL.org and tape it above your radio until you have it memorized. after a while it just becomes second nature and you stop having to look it up constantly

i was in the same boat when i first got my ticket, the actual regulation text is brutal to read. one thing to keep in mind though is that even if you accidentally transmit somewhere you shouldnt, as long as youre not doing it repeatedly or causing interference the FCC isnt exactly knocking down doors over a new ham making an honest mistake. that said definitely worth getting it right. i just studied the question pool again after i passed because the answers are basically a cheat sheet for the rules. also upgrade to general as soon as you can, opens up so much more of HF and a lot of that confusion just goes away