so ive been a Tech for about 8 months now and mostly just been on 2m and 70cm doing local stuff but honestly i keep hearing people talk about HF and i want to get in on that. a buddy at the club mentioned the General exam isnt that bad but i looked at the question pool online and some of it looks pretty intimidating, like the electrical stuff and propagation questions. im not an engineer or anything, just a regular person who got into this as a hobby.

i guess what im asking is how long did people actually study before passing, and is there like a best resource or do i just grind the question pool until i memorize it. also is it worth it to just go for Extra at the same time or is that overkill. i have no idea what im getting into here

honestly the General exam is pretty manageable if you put in a few weeks of studying. I used HamStudy.org almost exclusively and just did practice tests every day for like 3 weeks. by the time i was hitting 85-90% consistently i went and took the exam and passed no problem. the electrical theory stuff looks scary but once you understand the basic formulas it clicks pretty fast, ohms law and the resonance stuff especially.

as for going for Extra at the same time, i wouldnt recommend it unless you already have a background in electronics or something. Extra has a lot more depth and some of the question are genuinely tricky not just memorizable. get General first, get on HF, have fun for a while, then maybe circle back to Extra when you feel like a new challenge. thats what most people do anyway. the HF bands you unlock with General are more than enough to keep you busy for a long time, 40m alone is incredible once you get a decent antenna up

i just passed mine like two months ago so same boat as you pretty much. took me maybe 4 weeks of casual studying, wasnt super intense about it. Gordon West book helped me understand the why behind stuff rather than just memorizing answers, but towards the end i did switch to just hammering practice exams on the ARRL site.

one thing nobody told me that caught me off guard -- make sure you actually understand the band plan stuff because there were a couple questions on there that I almost second guessed myself on. also bring your Tech license to the VE session, i almost forgot mine lol