so ive been a tech for about a year and a half now mostly just doing vhf/uhf stuff, some APRS, worked a few satellites which was cool. but ive been listening to the HF bands on a little SDR dongle and honestly it sounds pretty amazing, especially 40m at night. just lots of conversations going on from all over.

anyway im thinking about upgrading to General and i started looking at the question pool and some of it is kind of intimidating. the electrical theory stuff especially. like i remember some of it from when i took the Tech exam but General seems way harder on that front. resistors in parallel, impedance, all that. is it as bad as it seems or does it kind of click once you study for a bit? also what actually changes once you pass, like which HF bands can i use as a General? i know Extra gets you more privileges but i wasnt sure exactly what General opens up versus Tech. any tips on study resources would be helpful too, i was looking at hamstudy.org which seems decent

hamstudy is great, thats basically what i used and i passed first try. the electrical theory stuff looks worse than it is honestly. once you understand a few core formulas like ohms law and how to work out parallel resistance it kind of unlocks a lot of the other questions. the exam isnt asking you to be an engineer, just to recognize the concepts well enough to pick the right answer out of four choices.

as for what you get with General, you open up big chunks of 40m, 20m, 15m, 10m and a few others. 20m is probably what most people go for first, its the workhorse band for DX during the day. 40m like you mentioned is fantastic in the evening for domestic contacts and some DX too depending on conditions. you dont get everything, Extra has some additional segments especially on the lower parts of some bands, but General is more than enough to have a really good time on HF. honestly just go for it, the jump from Tech to General is totally worth it

took my General last spring after being a tech for like 3 years, wish i had done it sooner tbh. the theory questions tripped me up at first but i just kept doing practice exams on hamstudy until i was consistently hitting like 85% and then i felt okay about it. took maybe 3 weeks of studying maybe 20 mins a day.

one thing nobody really told me before i upgraded was that even after you pass you kinda have to figure out how HF actually works, like propagation and when to use which band and all that. its a whole other learning curve but a fun one. 17m has been my favorite lately, less crowded than 20m