so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and honestly i mostly just do local repeaters and some APRS stuff but i keep hearing about HF and it sounds like thats where the real fun is. anyway i picked up the gordon west general study book and started going through it but theres SO much stuff in there and i dont really know what to prioritize. like the propagation section makes my head spin and the math for calculating stuff i dont even know when id ever use that in real life.

i took a practice test on hamstudy.org and got like 67% which i guess is okay but not passing yet. is there a certain section that tends to trip people up or that i should really nail down before the exam? also is it worth trying to actually understand the material or do most people just memorize the question pool. i feel kinda bad even asking that but i want to be honest lol

exam is in about 3 weeks so i just want to make sure im spending my time right

honestly for the exam itself a lot of people do just grind the question pool and thats fine, you can always learn the why later when youre actually on the air. hamstudy is great for that, just keep doing practice tests until youre consistently hitting 80+ and youll be fine. the propagation stuff is worth understanding at least a little because it actually helps you figure out when to get on what band, but you dont need to be able to derive the formulas or anything.

the parts that get people are usually the electrical stuff like calculating power and resistance, and the license privileges section because theres a lot of specific frequencies to remember. focus some extra time there. also the band plan questions, there are a few that are weirdly specific about what modes are allowed where and those pop up pretty often from what i remember. three weeks is plenty of time if youre putting in like 20-30 minutes a day on it.

im in basically the same boat lol, been studying for general for like 6 weeks now. the math scared me too but honestly most of it is just ohms law and once you get the pattern it clicks. there are only a handful of actual calculation questions anyway so even if you mess those up youve got wiggle room.

one thing that helped me was watching some of the ham radio crash course videos on youtube while i was doing dishes or whatever, just kind of background learning. i passed last month and i will say the actual exam felt easier than the hard practice tests which was a relief. good luck, the HF bands are worth it, i made my first 40m contact the week after i got my upgrade and it was way more satisfying than i expected