so ive been wanting to get into ham radio for a while now, like a couple years honestly, but every time i try to look into it i get overwhelmed by all the info out there and dont know where to start. my neighbor is a ham and he keeps telling me to just take the test but i dont even know what the test covers or how hard it is or anything really

i guess my main question is what did you guys use to study and how long did it take you. i work full time so i dont have a ton of time to dedicate to it but im not in a huge rush either. also is the technician test the one i should be going for first or is there something easier i should do before that

sorry if this is a really basic question, i looked around the forum a bit and couldnt find a thread that really answered this for me

technician is definitely the starting point, there's nothing before it. and honestly it's not that bad. i studied for maybe two weeks using the HamStudy website, just doing practice questions every day for like 20-30 minutes on my lunch break and i passed no problem. the question pool is public so you're literally studying from the same questions that will be on the actual test, which makes a huge difference

the thing that helped me most was not trying to understand every single concept right away and just getting familiar with the questions first, then going back to learn the why behind the stuff i kept getting wrong. some of the electrical theory stuff can feel a bit dry but there's not a ton of math on the tech exam so dont stress too much about that

your neighbor can probably point you to a local club that does testing sessions too, a lot of them are pretty relaxed and some clubs even do walk-in testing on certain days. just check the ARRL website for exam sessions in your area if he doesnt know offhand

i passed mine like three months ago so this is still pretty fresh for me. i used HamStudy like the other guy probably mentioned but i also watched some youtube videos from a channel called Ham Radio Crash Course which helped things click for me when i was just reading wasnt doing it

took me about three weeks of casual studying. the actual test felt way less scary than i expected, it was 35 questions and i think i only flagged like four of them to go back to. you'll be fine just put in the reps on the practice tests until you're consistently hitting like 85 percent or better and you're ready