ok so i passed my general a few months ago and ive been trying to figure out where i can actually operate on 40 meters. i looked up the band plan but honestly it just made me more confused. like theres the ITU regions and then theres the ARRL band plan and they dont always match and i dont know which one i should actually be following

also what does it mean when people say dont operate too close to the band edge? i get that theres some legal limit but like if im doing SSB and my dial says 7.299 is that too close? the signal is wider than just one frequency right so im not really sure how to think about it. my radio shows the carrier frequency i think but the actual signal goes higher than that?

sorry if this is a dumb question, just dont want to transmit somewhere i shouldnt

not a dumb question at all, this trips up a lot of newly licensed folks. so the short version for the US is that as a general you have phone privileges on 40m from 7.175 to 7.300 MHz. that upper edge at 7.300 is the hard legal limit set by the FCC, not just a suggestion.

and yeah you're right to think about the signal width. on SSB your carrier is the dial frequency but the actual audio sidebands extend upward from there (assuming LSB which is what everyone uses on 40m). so if your dial reads 7.299 your signal could easily be pushing energy up to 7.302 or so depending on how loud you're talking and what your audio is like. the general rule of thumb most people follow is stay at least 3 kHz inside the edge, so nothing above 7.297 really to be safe. some guys push it closer but you can end up with your signal going out of band and that's an FCC violation technically.

the ITU region stuff matters more if you're working DX stations in other parts of the world, they have different allocations and you'll sometimes hear foreign stations operating in parts of the band that US hams cant use for phone. just something to be aware of when you hear a station calling and wonder why they're way down at like 7.140.

yeah what he said. i'll just add that i made this mistake early on, was running a net and had my vfo sitting right at 7.300 thinking i was fine and someone came on the next day and told me they could hear my upper sideband content creeping past the edge on their SDR. embarrassing but whatever, learned from it. just give yourself a few kHz of cushion and dont stress it