ok so i passed my technician exam about 3 months ago and ive been mostly doing 2m and 70cm stuff which is fine but i keep hearing people say techs can do some HF too and i honestly cannot figure out from reading Part 97 exactly what that means in practice. like i know there's something about 10 meters and maybe some other bands but the way the FCC document is written it kind of makes my eyes glaze over after a few paragraphs.

so can someone just tell me in plain english what i can actually transmit on below 30 mhz? phone, digital, cw, what? i dont want to accidentally key up somewhere i'm not supposed to be and get in trouble. also is there anything in particular i should know about power limits that are different from the normal tech limits on vhf/uhf

yeah the way Part 97 is written is genuinely rough to parse if you're not used to reading regulatory documents, so dont feel bad about that. basically as a tech you get CW privileges on 80, 40, 15, and 10 meters — but only in small segments near the bottom of those bands. for actual phone (voice) you only get a slice of 10 meters, i think it's 28.300 to 28.500 MHz, which is the tech phone allocation. power limit on HF for techs is 200 watts PEP on the bands where you have privileges, which is actually pretty reasonable to get started.

honestly the easiest way to not screw up is just grab the ARRL band plan graphic and keep it somewhere handy. the FCC table of allocations is technically the authoritative source but the ARRL version translates it into something a human can actually read. once you upgrade to general youll open up a lot more and it starts making more sense as a whole system.

was in the same boat not that long ago lol. the 10m phone segment is where i spent most of my time before i upgraded, when the band is open its actually pretty fun. just watch where you're transmitting and you'll be fine, nobody's going to come after you for an honest mistake as a new licensee as long as youre not doing something obviously wrong repeatedly