so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and honestly i love it but im getting kind of bored with just 2m and 70cm, i want to get on HF and actually work some DX and maybe try some of the digital modes ive been reading about. a buddy at my local club told me i should just go for it and take the general exam but honestly the pool looks pretty intimidating, like there are questions in there about things i have never heard of. propagation, electrical theory, all kinds of stuff. i downloaded one of the study apps and did a practice test and got like a 62% which isnt horrible i guess but the actual exam is 74% to pass right, like 26 out of 35. im wondering how people actually prepared for it and how long it realistically takes if youre putting in maybe an hour a day. also is there anything specific that tends to trip people up that i should focus on. i dont want to just memorize answers i actually want to understand it but i also just need to pass at some point you know

honestly the general pool is not that bad once you get into it. i was in the same spot maybe two years ago, tech for about a year and then decided to just go for it. i used HamStudy dot org every day for maybe 3 weeks, like 20-30 minutes during lunch, and passed with a 91. the stuff that tripped me up was some of the band plan stuff and the operating practices questions, not the theory. the electrical theory questions look scary but theyre actually pretty formulaic, like if you just remember ohms law and a couple power formulas you can work most of them out. the propagation stuff is genuinely interesting once it clicks, like understanding why 40m is great at night but 10m opens up during solar max is actually cool. dont stress too much about the 62%, if youre consistently practicing the missed questions you will be there in a few weeks easy. and yeah once you get that general ticket and you tune across 40m on a friday night and hear all those contacts happening, its a completely different hobby almost

i just passed mine like 6 weeks ago so this is super fresh for me. i used the gordon west book which some people think is old fashioned but it actually helped me understand the why behind a lot of the answers instead of just memorizing. took me maybe 5 weeks of casual studying. the math questions scared me the most but theres only like 3 or 4 of them and if you can remember a few key formulas honestly you can get through it. one thing i wish i knew earlier is the band privledges for general vs extra are actually pretty close on most bands so you get alot of the good stuff right away. 40m and 20m in particular are great as soon as you upgrade. good luck, just keep doing practice tests until youre consistently hitting 80+ and you should be fine