so i've been interested in ham radio for a while now, like years honestly, but always put it off thinking it would be too hard or expensive to get into. my neighbor mentioned he passed his technician exam last month and said it wasn't as bad as he expected and now im seriously considering it. i guess my question is just... where do you start? like is there a book i should get, or a website, or do i need to take a class? i looked up some stuff online but theres so much information its kind of overwhelming and i dont know whats current or outdated. also does the test cost money and how long does it usually take people to study before they feel ready

honestly hamstudy.org is where i'd send anyone starting out, just go there and start drilling questions. the technician pool isn't huge and the site tracks what you're getting wrong so you can focus on the weak spots. most people i know were ready in like 2-3 weeks of casual studying, maybe an hour a day or so. the test itself is 35 questions and you need 26 right to pass, and yeah theres a fee, usually around $15 depending on who's running the exam session but some clubs do it cheaper. some arrl clubs even do online remote testing now which is convenient if you dont have a session nearby. dont stress too much about the math questions, theres only a handful and honestly the formulas are pretty intuitive once you see them a few times. the question pool is public and the actual exam questions come straight from it so what you study is literally what shows up on the test

i was in the same spot like eight months ago, had no idea where to start. i ended up using the gordon west technician book which walks through everything in a pretty readable way, and then i supplemented with hamstudy to do practice exams. took me maybe three weeks before i was consistently scoring in the 90s on practice tests and i figured that was good enough. passed first try. the actual exam felt easier than the practice ones weirdly. one thing nobody told me beforehand — bring two forms of ID to the exam session, i almost got tripped up on that. also if your club does a licensing class those can be really helpful just to ask questions, i wish i had done one but the self study route worked fine too