ok so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, my neighbor does it and he makes it look really fun but honestly the whole licensing thing is kind of intimidating and i dont even know where to start. like do i have to take a class or can i just study on my own? and how hard is the technician test actually, i took one practice test online and got like a 60% which is probably bad. also is there a specific book i should get or do people just use websites. sorry if this is a dumb question im just trying to figure out what the realistic path looks like here

not a dumb question at all, everyone starts somewhere. honestly the technician exam is pretty manageable if you put in a couple weeks of studying. the thing most people dont realize is the question pool is public, like they literally publish all the questions and answers that could show up on the test, so in theory you could just memorize everything. hamstudy.org is where i'd point you first, it tracks which questions you're getting wrong and focuses on those, way better than just reading a book cover to cover in my opinion. i used gordon west's book back when i did it and that was fine but the website honestly gets you test-ready faster. your 60% on a first cold practice test is pretty normal, don't read too much into that. give it two or three weeks of doing practice questions every day and you'll probably be hitting 85-90% consistently. find a local club too if you can, they usually run free license classes and the elmers there can answer the stuff that doesnt make sense from just reading.

i just passed my tech like two months ago so this is pretty fresh for me. i basically only used hamstudy and did maybe 20-30 minutes a day for about three weeks. the electrical theory stuff tripped me up at first but once it clicks it clicks. the test itself felt way less scary than the practice tests for some reason, maybe because i knew what to expect. just go do it honestly, worst case you fail and retake it, the fee is like 15 bucks now i think.