ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now, just a technician, and im trying to figure out exactly what im actually allowed to do. I keep reading Part 97 but honestly its written in such a weird legal way that i cant always tell what applies to me. like i know i have HF privileges on 10m but only certain modes? and then theres something about 80m and cw only but i dont really understand the power limits either. my elmer told me to just stick to 2m/70cm for now and not worry about it but im the kind of person who wants to understand the rules before i operate, not after. also someone at the club mentioned something about third party traffic and i have no idea what that even means in a practical sense. is there like a plain english version of this somewhere or does everyone just kind of learn it as they go

yeah Part 97 is rough to read if youre not used to legalese, totally get it. the ARRL has a decent summary of tech privileges that breaks it down without all the whereas and notwithstanding language. basically as a tech you get pretty much everything VHF and up, then on HF you get a small slice of 10m for phone (around 28.3 to 28.5 MHz) and then some limited cw/data privileges on a few other bands. the power limits vary by band and mode and honestly the easiest thing is just to pull up the ARRL band plan and cross reference with your license class, its way more readable than the actual FCC document.

third party traffic is basically when you let someone who isnt a ham use your station to communicate, like you key up and your neighbor talks to his cousin in another state or whatever. there are rules about which countries you can do that with, some have agreements with the US and some dont, so you have to check before you let anyone else talk through your radio internationally. domestically its generally fine as long as youre the control operator present.

honestly same boat as you like six months ago. what helped me was just downloading the technician question pool from the ARRL website because even if youre already licensed, the explanations in the study material are written to actually make sense to a human. Part 97 itself is kind of a document written by lawyers for lawyers. once you pass the exam they dont really expect you to have it memorized word for word, more like you understand the spirit of it - no business communications, ID every 10 minutes during and at end of contact, dont interfere intentionally, that kind of thing. the specifics like exact frequency edges you can look up as needed