so ive been wanting to get into ham radio for a while now and finally decided to just go for the technician license. got a baofeng sitting in a drawer that a friend gave me like two years ago and figured its time to actually be legal lol. anyway i looked up the question pool and theres like 400+ questions on there and i dont even know which ones actually matter or if i need to memorize all of them. someone at my local radio club said just use hamstudy.org and youll pass in a week but im not sure if thats actually enough or if i should get a book too. does anyone have experience with this, like what actually worked for you when you were studying. im not great at memorizing stuff and some of the electrical theory questions look pretty intimidating honestly

hamstudy is honestly all you need for most people. i studied for maybe 5 days using just that site and passed with a 33/35 or something like that. the way it works is it tracks which questions you keep getting wrong and drills you on those more, so its pretty efficient. the electrical theory stuff looks scary but for the tech exam you really dont need to deeply understand ohms law or anything, you just kind of learn what answer goes with what question if that makes sense. there are a few concepts worth actually understanding though, like the difference between simplex and repeater operation, and the band privileges stuff because that actually matters when you start using the radio. for the baofeng youll mostly be on 2m and 70cm so pay attention to those sections. the ARRL technician manual is good if you want to actually understand whats going on but for just passing the test hamstudy is fine

yeah dont overthink it. the question pool is public and the exam is literally pulled straight from it so if you know the pool you know the exam. i did mine years ago with a printed study guide from the ARRL but these days the websites are way better. one thing i'll say is dont skip the rules and regs questions even if they seem boring, theres a bunch of them on the actual test and people sometimes blow past those thinking the technical stuff is more important. also just go take the exam sooner than you think youre ready, worst case you fail and you can retake it, most VE sessions let you do that same day if there are still seats. you got this