so ive been a Tech for about 8 months now and honestly been having a lot of fun on VHF and some 10m when the band cooperates but i keep hearing people talk about HF and working DX and all that and im starting to feel like im missing out on a lot. been looking at the General class question pool and honestly some of it looks pretty intimidating, especially the electrical theory stuff and the propagation questions. i do okay with rules and regs but the math parts are kind of freaking me out a little.

does anyone have a good way to study for this or is it mostly just memorizing the pool? i tried reading the ARRL handbook but it feels like drinking from a firehose. also once i pass and get my General privileges what bands should i even start on, like where do people actually hang out. sorry if this is a vague question i just dont really know what im missing yet

honestly the General exam is not that bad, i was in the same spot as you about two years ago. the math looks scary but theres really only a handful of formulas that show up and if you just grind through HamStudy.org for a couple weeks youll start recognizing the questions pretty fast. i think i spent maybe 3 weeks studying maybe 20-30 minutes a day and passed no problem. the electrical theory stuff like impedance and reactance sounds worse than it is when you actually see what they're asking.

as for where to hang out once you get your ticket, i'd say 40 meters is a good starting point for newer HF folks, lots of activity day and night and you dont need crazy antennas to make contacts. 20 meters is kind of the workhorse band for DX during decent conditions. just get a decent wire antenna up and start listening before you transmit, youll figure out the culture pretty quick. the upgrade is definitely worth it, it opens up so much more of the hobby.

just passed mine last month so pretty fresh for me. the propagation questions tripped me up a bit at first but once you understand basically why skywave works the way it does it starts to click. i used the Gordon West study book which felt a lot more approachable than the ARRL manual for exam prep purposes, the handbook is great but its not really a study guide ya know.

one thing nobody told me — after you pass there's a few days before your General shows up in the ULS database so dont try to operate HF the same day lol. learned that one from someone in my club who was super eager. 40m is good like the other person said, i've also been messing around on 17m which is kind of underrated imo