so ive been a tech for about 2 years now and honestly mostly just been doing 2m/70cm stuff, some APRS, occasional simplex chats. i decided i want to get into HF finally and started looking at the general pool questions. some of it makes sense, some of it really doesnt and im not sure if its just me not understanding the material or if the actual questions are just kind of weirdly worded.

like the propagation stuff i get mostly, but the regulations questions are killing me. specifically around the phone privileges and which bands i can actually use once i pass. is there a simple breakdown somewhere of what i actually gain vs what i had as tech? i know techs get some HF but its pretty limited. also how hard is the actual test compared to tech, i feel like the tech exam wasnt too bad but people keep telling me general is a big step up and now im second guessing myself

using hamstudy.org right now and just grinding through the question pool. any advice on what to actually focus on would be helpful, some of these electrical questions feel like overkill for what i actually want to do

honestly the jump from tech to general felt bigger to me when i was studying but when i actually sat down and took the test it wasnt as scary as everyone made it sound. the electrical theory questions look intimidating but you really only need to understand the concepts at a surface level, you dont have to be an engineer. the ones about impedance and reactance and all that, just learn enough to recognize the right answer and move on.

the band privileges thing is actually pretty straightforward once you look at an actual band plan chart. as a general you get most of HF with some portions of 80, 40, 20 and 15 meters reserved for extra class on the phone portions. 17 and 12 meters you get full access which is nice. honestly just print out the ARRL band plan and stare at it for a while, it clicks faster than trying to memorize the question pool answers about it

hamstudy is great for drilling but i also went through the gordon west study guide which helped me understand the why behind the answers rather than just memorizing. made a difference for me at least. you got this, the test really isnt bad

same boat as you were not too long ago, passed general back in march. the regulations stuff does suck to study, not gonna lie. what helped me was just doing practice exams over and over on hamstudy until i was consistently hitting like 85% or above, then i went and took the real thing. missed it by less than i thought i would.

one thing nobody told me before i upgraded -- once you actually get on HF for the first time its kind of overwhelming in a good way? like i expected it to sound cleaner or something and instead its just chaos and noise and then suddenly you pull a contact out of it and its amazing. 40 meters in the evening is where i spend most of my time now