so ive been a Tech for about 8 months now and honestly i want to get on HF already. i can hear people on 40m with my buddies radio and it just sounds like so much fun. ive been looking at the question pool and some of it makes sense but a lot of the electrical stuff is going over my head like the calculations and stuff with impedance and reactance whatever that is.

is the General exam actually hard or am i overthinking it? i did pass Tech on my first try but i felt like i barely scraped through. also does it matter what study material i use, ive seen people mention Gordon West and also hamstudy.org and i dont know which one is better or if i need both. any advice would help i just dont want to walk in and bomb it

honestly the math looks scarier than it is. theres only a handful of actual calculation questions and you can kind of learn to recognize the pattern without fully understanding the theory behind it. hamstudy.org is where i'd point you first, just grind the question pool until you're consistently hitting 85% or better on the practice exams and you'll be fine.

the electrical theory stuff like reactance and impedance, you dont need to be an engineer to get through the exam. just know enough to pick the right answer. i spent maybe 3 weeks studying on and off in the evenings and passed with room to spare. the privileges you get on HF are absolutely worth the effort, 40m especially is great once you have your General ticket.

i just did this like two months ago, same situation came from Tech and wanted HF. used hamstudy almost exclusively and passed first try. the propagation questions tripped me up a little at first but once it clicked it made sense. dont stress too much about the math just memorize the formulas they give you in the pool and plug in numbers