so ive been a general for about two years now and honestly the privileges have been fine for what i do but lately ive been eyeing some of the extra class portions of the bands especially on 20m and 40m where a lot of the dx action seems to happen and i keep getting shut out

anyway i downloaded the question pool and started going through it and some of this stuff is pretty dense, like the filter theory and the Smith chart questions and stuff about transistor biasing... i passed my general without too much trouble but this feels like a different animal. is the extra actually as hard as it looks or does it kind of click once you spend some time with it? i dont have an engineering background or anything, just been a hobbyist for a few years

also wondering if the full privileges are actually worth it day to day or if im just romanticizing it a bit

honestly the theory stuff looks scarier than it is when youre just staring at the question pool cold. once you start working through the actual concepts behind the questions a lot of it starts making sense together, like the filter and impedance matching stuff connects once you understand why its there. i used the hamstudy site basically every day for about six weeks and just kept at it until my weak spots filled in

the Smith chart questions tripped me up too at first but theres a couple good youtube videos that walk through how to actually read one and after that the exam questions on it were pretty manageable. i wouldnt say you need an engineering degree, just patience and willingness to sit with something confusing for a bit before it clicks

as for the privileges, the extra portions of the cw bands especially on 40 are noticeably less crowded and yeah the dx windows matter more than i expected. its not night and day but its real

i just passed mine like three months ago and im definitely not an engineer lol, work in logistics. the theory sections are dense but the way the questions are written you can honestly learn the pattern of the right answers even when the underlying math is fuzzy. not saying that's the right way to do it but it works for passing the test

the 160m privileges were what pushed me to finally do it, thats where i wanted to play and generals dont get much of that band