so ive been wanting to get into ham radio for a while now and finally decided to just go for it and take the technician exam. problem is i have no idea where to start. i downloaded the question pool from the arrl website but theres like 400+ questions and it kind of just overwhelmed me when i opened it. do people actually memorize all of these or is there a smarter way to go about it. a friend told me to just use hamstudy.org and drill questions until i pass but i dont know if thats enough or if i should also read a book or something. any advice appreciated, im trying to get this done within the next month or so if possible

hamstudy is honestly what most people use and it works fine for the tech exam. the question pool isnt as bad as it looks once you start going through it, a lot of the questions kind of repeat the same concepts just worded differently. i did maybe 45 minutes a day for like 3 weeks and passed with a decent score. the electrical stuff and ohms law questions tripped me up at first but if you just understand the basic formula you can work out most of them instead of memorizing the answers. the band plan stuff is mostly just pattern recognition after a while. i wouldnt stress too much, the tech exam isnt that hard if you actually put in some time with the question pool

yeah hamstudy is good but i'd also suggest grabbing the ARRL Ham Radio License Manual if you want to actually understand what you're studying. drilling questions can get you through the test but you'll be a better operator if you know why the answers are what they are, especially the safety stuff and the basic electronics. that said i know plenty of people who just did the online question drills and passed fine and figured the rest out on the air. either way works. just dont ignore the RF safety questions, they show up a fair amount on the actual exam and people tend to underestimate that section