so ive been wanting to get my technician license for like a year now and i keep putting it off because every time i look at the question pool it just feels like a massive wall of information. theres stuff about electrical theory and regulations and operating procedures and propagation and i dont even know where to begin. someone at my local club told me to just memorize the answers and dont worry about understanding it but that feels wrong? like i want to actually know what im doing when i get on the air. does anyone have a method that actually worked for them, not just passing but like actually retaining stuff

honestly the hamstudy.org website is probably the best thing out there for this right now, it tracks which questions you keep getting wrong and drills you on those specifically. i did the same thing you're describing where i tried to read through everything first and just got overwhelmed. what finally clicked for me was just doing practice questions from day one and looking up the why behind the ones i missed. the ARRL technician manual is good if you want actual explanations but you dont have to read the whole thing cover to cover, just the sections that confuse you after you do some practice tests. the electrical theory stuff especially ohms law just takes a few repetitions and then it sticks. give yourself like 3 weeks and you'll be fine, the pool is only 35 questions on the actual exam out of the full question pool so the odds are in your favor once you know most of them

i passed mine last month and the memorize the answers approach actually works fine for passing but yeah you'll feel lost once you actually try to get on a repeater and dont know what youre doing lol. i used the gordon west technician book and it was pretty readable, not dry like some study guides. the part about frequencies and band plans took me the longest honestly. good luck