so ive been a Tech for about 8 months now and mostly just been doing local stuff on 2m and 70cm, some APRS, joined a couple nets. its been fun but honestly i keep hearing people talk about HF and working DX and i feel like im missing out on the whole point of ham radio kind of

anyway i downloaded the question pool and started going through it and some of it makes sense but a lot of the electrical theory stuff is really tripping me up. like i get ohms law fine but when it gets into reactance and impedance matching and all that my eyes kind of glaze over. do i need to actually UNDERSTAND all of it or can i just memorize the answers and pass and then learn the rest later

also whats the deal with HF privileges once you pass, do you get everything right away or is there some waiting period or additional steps. i honestly dont even know what bands i would have access to versus an Extra class

honestly the memorization approach works fine for passing, thats basically what most people do and nobody is going to quiz you on the theory while youre operating. the pool isnt that big and if you spend a few weeks on hamstudy.org doing practice tests youll probably be ready. i think i got to like 85% on the practice tests before i took the real one and passed no problem

the theory stuff does start making more sense once you actually get on HF and start dealing with antenna tuners and figuring out why your SWR is doing weird things, so dont stress about deeply understanding every formula right now. just get the ticket and get on the air, the learning happens naturally after that

and yeah once you pass and your callsign updates in the FCC database which usually takes a day or two, you can operate on the General portions right away. no waiting period or anything. you wont have the full 40m or 20m privileges that Extra gets but honestly General gives you plenty to work with especially when youre just starting out on HF

the impedance stuff tripped me up too, i just kind of brute forced the formulas long enough to pass and moved on lol. been a General for like 3 months now and have been having a blast on 40m in the evenings, already worked a handful of countries which i never wouldve done on VHF

one thing i will say is dont sleep on 17m if conditions are decent, i stumbled onto it kind of by accident and its way less crowded than 20m