hey everyone, kind of embarrassing but ive been interested in ham radio for like two years now and i keep putting off actually getting licensed. i dont even know what the difference is between all the license levels or which one i should be going for first. a coworker has a radio and hes been bugging me to just do it already. i looked up the FCC website and got kind of overwhelmed and closed the tab lol

anyway is there like a standard way people study for this or do you just kind of wing it? i heard there are practice tests somewhere online but i dont know if thats actually enough to pass or if i need to buy a book or take a class or what. also how hard is the actual test, like is it multiple choice or do you have to know morse code or anything like that

ok so first thing, you dont need morse code anymore, hasnt been required for like 15+ years so cross that off your worry list. the technician is definitely where everyone starts and honestly the test isnt bad at all, 35 questions multiple choice and you need 26 right to pass. the question pool is public so you literally already know every possible question that could show up on the exam.

what worked for me was just hammering hamstudy.org for a week or two, its free and it tracks which questions you keep getting wrong so you can focus on those. some people also like the ARRL technician manual if you want something more structured but honestly the website alone got me through it. when you feel like youre consistently scoring 80+ percent on the practice exams you're probably ready. finding a local club to take the test through is easy, just go to arrl.org and use the exam session finder. most of them only charge like 15 bucks for the VE session fee

i did mine like 8 months ago, basically just used hamstudy on my phone during lunch breaks at work for maybe 3 weeks. passed first try with only missing 4 i think. the electrical stuff tripped me up a little since i never really did anything with electronics before but you pick up the patterns pretty fast when youre seeing the same questions over and over. good luck, its way less scary than it looks from the outside