so ive been a tech for about 2 years now and mostly just been doing 2m/70cm stuff, some local repeaters, a little APRS. but ive been getting more curious about HF and everyone keeps telling me to just go get my general already. i downloaded the question pool and honestly some of it looks pretty intimidating, like the electrical theory stuff and the propagation questions. i passed the tech exam without too much trouble but that feels like a long time ago now.

my main question is how long did you guys actually study before taking it and is there like a particular section thats really hard that i should pay extra attention to. also wondering if its worth just going straight for extra but thats probably getting ahead of myself lol

honestly the general exam is not that bad, took me maybe 3 weeks of on and off studying and i passed no problem. i used HamStudy dot org almost exclusively and just did practice tests over and over until i was consistently getting like 85-90% before i went in for the real thing. the electrical theory stuff looks scary when you first see it but a lot of those questions are just memorization if im being honest, you dont really have to understand the math deeply to pick the right answer.

the propagation and band plan stuff is actually kind of interesting once you start getting into it because it connects to actually operating on HF. i would not skip straight to extra unless you just have a lot of free time, general opens up most of the HF bands you actually want anyway and you can always go back for extra later when youre not as burned out on studying. good luck

i just did this like 4 months ago, went from tech to general. the part that tripped me up was the operating procedures and some of the regs around HF, like which portions of the bands techs can already use vs what general opens up. theres more overlap than i expected. but yeah just grind practice tests, thats really all it is. i think i studied maybe 2 weeks total, maybe less.

one thing nobody told me before i upgraded -- make sure you actually have an HF rig lined up or at least a plan because i passed the exam and then realized i had no antenna and no radio and just sat there with a shiny new callsign doing nothing for two months lol