so ive been a general for about two years now and i keep going back and forth on whether to bother with the extra. i mostly do HF casual stuff, some 40m and 20m, nothing crazy. my buddy keeps telling me i should just do it for the extra HF privileges but honestly i look at the question pool and some of that stuff is way over my head. like the filter theory and the math behind the oscillator circuits and stuff. i took electronics in community college like 15 years ago so i remember some basics but the advanced theory sections are kind of intimidating.

i guess my question is do you actually use any of that theory day to day or is it just stuff you memorize for the test and then forget. also does the extra portion of 40m actually make a difference for finding clear frequencies or is it usually just as crowded

honestly the extra HF segments are worth it alone if you do any serious operating. the 40m extra portion is noticeably less crowded especially during contests when the general portion turns into a zoo. same deal on 80m, that extra 25khz on the low end is where a lot of the good DX parks itself.

as for the theory — yeah you memorize a lot of it for the test and dont really think about it again unless you get into building stuff or troubleshooting weird antenna behavior. but i actually found studying for it kind of made some things click that i always just sort of handwaved before. like i finally actually understood why my antenna tuner was doing what it was doing. took me about 6 weeks of studying maybe an hour a night using the hamstudy site and i passed first try. the math sections look scarier than they are, most of it is plug and chug with formulas they basically give you the context for.

i just passed mine last month so this is pretty fresh for me. the oscillator and filter stuff tripped me up too but theres a guy on youtube who does like 20 minute explainers on the harder theory sections and after watching those it actually made sense. i cant remember the channel name right now but if you search extra class theory you'll find it.

the test itself felt harder than general but not impossible. i think i missed like 4 questions which still passes. the privleges on 60m are also kind of interesting if you ever do emcomm type stuff but thats a whole other thing