so ive been a tech for about 14 months now and honestly i feel like ive kind of hit the wall with what i can do on VHF/UHF locally. the repeaters are fine but i want to actually talk to people further away and everyone keeps telling me just get your general already. i know i know.

anyway i ordered the gordon west book but its sitting on my shelf and i havent cracked it yet. i guess my main question is how hard is the jump from tech to general really? like the tech exam wasnt that bad once i sat down and just did the question pool a bunch of times. is general more of the same or is there actual stuff you really need to understand vs just memorizing? im kind of worried about the electrical theory parts because i never took physics or anything like that in school.

also what HF stuff am i actually gonna be able to do once i pass, i know i dont get all the bands or all the mode privileges right away but im fuzzy on the specifics. somebody at the club said generals cant use certain parts of 20m? not sure if that was right

the jump is totally doable, dont stress too much. yeah theres more theory than the tech exam but honestly if you just grind through HamStudy or QRZ's practice tests for a couple weeks you'll start to recognize the patterns. the electrical stuff like ohms law and resonance calculations are really not that bad once you see them a few times, and there are only so many ways they can ask the same question.

on the privileges thing your club buddy was right, generals are restricted to certain sub-bands on HF. on 20 meters for example you get CW and data below 14.150 but SSB phone starts at 14.225 for generals i think, while extras can use down to 14.150. its not a huge deal in practice, most of the popular DX calling frequencies are accessible and youll find plenty of action. 40 meters is where it gets a little more noticeable since the phone portion for generals is kind of narrow and can get crowded. but honestly just get the license and worry about the fine print later, you'll figure it out as you go. the gordon west book is fine but i'd supplement it with the actual question pool drilling, that's what really locks it in for most people.

i was in the same spot maybe six months ago lol. tech for two years just sitting there doing nothing on 2m basically. passed general on like my second try, first time i ran out of time which was embarasing but whatever. the math questions are the ones that got me, theres a couple where you actually have to punch numbers into a calculator so i'd practice those specifically. everything else is pretty much memorizable if you just do the practice tests over and over. took me maybe three weeks of studying on and off.

once you get it the HF stuff is pretty wild compared to what we had as techs. first time i made a contact on 40m to someone like 800 miles away on a wire antenna in my backyard i kind of couldnt believe it worked