so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, my neighbor has a big antenna setup and it got me curious. i looked it up online and theres like three different license levels? technician, general, and something else i forget. do i need to take a class or can i just study on my own and take the test. also how hard is the test actually, im not great at math or electronics stuff so im kind of worried about that part. any advice would be helpful i dont really know where to begin honestly

dont stress about the math, the technician exam is really not that bad. i was in the same boat a couple years ago, zero electronics background, just studied using the HamStudy website for like two or three weeks and passed first try. the question pool is public so youre basically just memorizing answers to a fixed set of questions, which sounds like cheating but thats just how it works. there are 35 questions on the actual test and you need 26 right to pass. some of the radio wave propagation and band stuff felt random at first but it clicks after a bit of reading. gordon west makes a study book thats pretty popular too if you like having an actual physical thing to read through. once you pass tech you can get on most of the fun stuff, vhf uhf repeaters, talk to people locally, some satellite stuff even. general opens up the hf bands which is where you start working other countries and stuff but thats a whole other conversation

yeah hamstudy.org is what everybody says and its honestly just true, thats how i did it. also look up if theres a local radio club near you because a lot of them run free licensing classes and they can point you to a test session. the third license is Amateur Extra by the way, thats the top one but you dont need it for a long time if ever really