so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, my neighbor has a big antenna setup in his backyard and it got me curious. i looked it up and apparently you have to take a test? i dont really know what im doing here and googling it just gave me a bunch of stuff that assumed i already knew things i dont know

like whats the difference between technician and general and all that, do i need to take them separately or can you just jump to the higher one. also is the test hard, im decent with electronics but i havent done anything like this before. any advice on where to actually start would be helpful, sorry if this is a dumb question

not a dumb question at all, everyone starts somewhere. okay so the short version is there are three license levels in the US — Technician, General, and Amateur Extra. you have to take them in order, so Technician first. some people do what they call same-day upgrades where they pass Tech and then immediately sit for General at the same session, which is totally allowed.

for studying most people use HamStudy.org or the ARRL study guides. HamStudy is free and honestly really good, it just drills you on the actual question pool which is what the test pulls from. the Technician pool is like 423 questions and they pull 35 for your exam, you need a 74% to pass. a lot of people with no background at all can get through it in a few weeks of casual studying, maybe less if you put some real time in. look up a VE session near you through the ARRL website when you feel ready. good luck

yeah i just did mine like two months ago, used hamstudy and just kept doing practice tests until i was consistently hitting 90% or better and then went and took the real thing. felt pretty confident going in. the actual test felt easier than the practice ones honestly, i think because i was nervous and studied more than i needed to lol

one thing nobody told me was to bring two forms of ID to the test session, i almost forgot and that wouldve been a whole thing