okay so ive been wanting to get my ham license for like two years now and i finally decided to just do it. picked up a baofeng a while back that i havent even touched because i didnt want to transmit illegally or whatever. anyway i downloaded the hamstudy app and its kind of overwhelming, like theres 423 questions in the pool and i dont really know if i should just memorize all of them or actually try to understand the material. a friend told me the actual exam only pulls like 35 questions from the pool but i dont know if thats right. also does anyone know how much of the tech exam is actually math because i am not great at math and that has been holding me back from just sitting down and doing this. any tips would be appreciated, been lurking here for a long time and you guys seem to know your stuff

yeah your friend is right, 35 questions from the pool, you need 26 correct to pass so theres actually more wiggle room than people think. the math on the tech exam is honestly pretty minimal, were talking like ohms law basics and maybe a decibel question or two. nothing that would stop you from passing if youre weak on math. hamstudy is fine but personally i like the way gordon west study guide lays things out if you want actual context instead of just drilling flash cards. some people pass just memorizing answers but then they get on the air and dont know what anything means so id recommend at least skimming the explanations for the sections you dont understand. the electrical safety and FCC rules stuff is a big chunk of the exam so dont sleep on that. good luck, its honestly not a hard test once you sit down with it for a few weekends

i just passed mine like six weeks ago so this is pretty fresh for me. i used hamstudy exclusively and probably did about 3 hours total spread over maybe 10 days. the practice exams on there are really useful, once you start consistently hitting 80% or above youre probably ready. the math was maybe 3 or 4 questions on my actual exam and one of them i just guessed on and got lucky lol. dont stress it too much. the hardest part for me was the band plan stuff and some of the repeater terminology but even that clicked after a while. just take the plunge and schedule the exam, having a date on the calendar made me actually study instead of putting it off