so i decided i want to get my technician license, been interested in ham radio for a while now mostly because my neighbor has one and he showed me some of the stuff you can do with it. anyway i went online and looked up how to get licensed and i know there's a question pool but honestly it's kind of overwhelming. like do i just memorize all 400 something questions? is there a better way to study? i found a couple apps but i dont know which ones are actually worth using vs just wasting my time. also some of the electrical theory stuff is going over my head a bit, i took basic physics in high school but that was a long time ago. does everyone struggle with that part or is it just me

the question pool thing sounds scarier than it actually is. the real exam only pulls 35 questions from it so you dont need to have every single one memorized perfectly, you just need to get 26 right. what worked for me was using hamstudy.org, just drilling questions every day for like 20-30 minutes. it tracks which ones youre getting wrong and keeps throwing those at you more often. after maybe two weeks i was consistently scoring in the high 80s and 90s on the practice tests and felt pretty ready.

the electrical theory stuff, yeah some of it is a little rough if you havent touched it in a while. ohms law shows up a few times and theres some basic stuff about circuits. honestly for the tech exam you dont need to deeply understand it, you kind of just need to recognize the right answer. the ARRL Technician manual is decent if you want actual explanations but some people just grind the question pool and pass fine without it. just depends how you learn i guess.

hamstudy is what everyone recommends and for good reason but i'll also say the ham radio prep app is pretty solid if you want something on your phone during a commute or whatever. i used both when i was studying for my tech a couple years ago and passed first try so cant complain. one thing id say is dont ignore the rules and regulations questions because there are a decent number of them and theyre actually pretty easy points if you just read through them once. stuff like what frequencies technicians can use, proper ID procedures, that kind of thing. easy to get right with just a little attention.