so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, like probably a couple years just kind of lurking and watching youtube videos but never actually pulled the trigger on studying for the test. my neighbor is a ham and keeps telling me to just do it but i dont even know where to start honestly. is there like one resource that most people use or do you kind of have to piece it together from different places? also how hard is the technician exam actually, i have a pretty decent background with electronics from messing around with hobby stuff but not like formal training or anything. and do i need to memorize the actual question pool or is it more conceptual? i signed up for a hamstudy account like a month ago and did maybe 20 questions and then got distracted so i feel like i basically havent started. just want to know if theres a better approach before i sink more time into something thats not working

honestly hamstudy is pretty much what everyone uses and it works fine, you just gotta actually sit with it for a bit. the technician pool isnt that bad, i think i studied maybe two weeks on and off and passed with like an 85 or something. the questions are pretty much verbatim from the pool so if you grind through it enough times the answers start to stick even if you dont fully understand all of it. that said i think it helps to at least understand the basic concepts behind the electrical stuff because some of those questions trip people up if you're just memorizing without context. gordon west has a book a lot of people swear by if you want something more structured than just flashcards. the test itself is 35 questions and you need 26 right so theres actually some room for error which helped calm my nerves when i showed up. find a local club doing a testing session and just book it, having a date on the calendar makes you actually study

hamstudy is fine but dont overlook the ARRL technician manual if you actually want to understand whats going on vs just passing. i see a lot of new hams come through who crammed for the test and then get on the air and dont know why their SWR is high or what a repeater offset even means. not trying to be harsh about it, everyone starts somewhere, but there's a difference between having the ticket and knowing how to use it. the exam questions come straight from a published pool so yeah technically you can memorize your way through it, the pool is public and hamstudy pulls from it directly. but if electronics isnt foreign to you it wont take long to actually understand the material which makes everything after the test easier. also look up if there's a local club near you, a lot of them do free licensing classes and having an elmer in the room who can answer questions in real time is worth more than any study app imo