so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, like probably a year or so of just watching youtube videos and reading random stuff online but i never actually did anything about it. my neighbor has a big antenna setup in his backyard and we got to talking and now im actually thinking about going for it and getting my technician license or whatever the first one is called.

my question is basically just... where do i even start? there seems to be like a lot of different study guides and apps and websites and i dont really know which ones are actually worth using versus just noise. also is the test hard? i have no electronics background at all, like zero, i work in landscaping so this is pretty much a completely different world for me. any tips would be appreciated, kind of feeling overwhelmed honestly

honestly the technician exam is pretty approachable even without any electronics background, dont let it intimidate you. the question pool is public, which is a huge deal — the actual test questions come directly from that pool so you're not getting surprised by anything you havent seen before. hamstudy.org is probably where id point you first, just make an account and start running through the practice questions. it shows you how you're doing per category and once you're consistently hitting like 85% or higher on the practice tests you're probably ready to sit for the real thing.

the ARRL Technician study guide book is good too if you're someone who likes to actually understand the why behind the answers rather than just memorizing, but honestly a lot of people just do the flash card grind on hamstudy and pass fine. the exam itself is 35 questions and you need 26 correct, so theres some room for error. look up a VE session near you through the ARRL website or ham study also lists exam sessions. your neighbor might even know of a local club doing testing which is usually pretty low key and chill compared to what you might be imagining

I passed my tech last spring with basically no background either, took me maybe three weeks of studying like 20-30 minutes a night on the hamstudy app. the electrical stuff felt weird at first but honestly for the exam you dont really need to deeply understand ohms law or whatever, you kind of just learn to recognize the question and know the answer. some people find that unsatisfying but it works lol. the RF safety section tripped me up a little so pay attention to that part, theres a handful of questions from it on the test and its easy to gloss over