okay so I passed my general a few weeks ago and ive been trying to figure out where exactly I can transmit on 40 meters. I know there's the technician portion and the general portion and extra but when I look at the band plan online it gets confusing fast because some of them show different things and I dont know which one is the actual legal limit vs just a gentleman's agreement type thing.

like for example I see people talking about the band edges and how you're not supposed to operate right at the edge because your signal might bleed over or something? but nobody really explains what that means practically. if my license says I can go down to 7.125 can I actually transmit there or is there like an unwritten rule about staying a few khz up from that. also is the 7.0-7.125 section only for CW or can I do digital down there too as a general. sorry if this is a dumb question im still figuring all this out

not a dumb question at all, this trips people up constantly. so the FCC part 97 is what actually matters legally, the band plans you see from ARRL or whatever are recommendations, not law. for 40m as a general you can do phone from 7.175 to 7.300, and you get the lower chunk for CW and some digital modes. the 7.125 thing you're seeing is the bottom of general phone I think, though honestly double check that on the actual FCC allocation table because I might be off by a few khz.

the band edge thing is real though and practical. if you're doing SSB and your carrier is sitting right at say 7.300 on USB, your upper sideband energy is going above 7.300 which is outside your allocation. so you need to back off enough that your whole transmitted signal stays within the band. how much depends on your audio bandwidth but most people just stay at least 3khz inside the edge to be safe. it becomes second nature after a while you just dont park on the numbers.

yeah what he said, and also just to add - digital modes like FT8 on 40m tends to cluster around 7.074 which is in the CW/data portion so as a general you should be fine there. I was confused about this same stuff when I upgraded and honestly the easiest thing is just to download the ARRL band plan pdf and keep it open for a while until it becomes second nature. after a few months of operating you just kinda know where stuff lives without thinking about it