so ive been a tech for about two years now and i finally decided to just go for the general upgrade. been doing the hamstudy thing and the gordon west book and honestly most of it is fine but some of the electrical stuff is killing me. like i understand ohms law no problem but when they get into the reactance and impedance questions i just kind of stare at the screen for a while and hope i absorb something by osmosis or whatever.

my question i guess is do you actually need to understand all the math behind this stuff or is it more just memorize the formulas and recognize which one they're asking about. because right now im trying to do both and i feel like im confusing myself more than anything. also the band plan stuff is pretty straightforward right, that part seems manageable at least.

been wanting to get on 40m and 17m for a while now so im motivated to get this done. just wondering how other people approached the exam prep, any sections that tripped you up or any advice on what to actually focus on vs what you can kind of skim.

honestly for the exam itself, memorizing the patterns is mostly enough to pass. like you dont need to fully derive why an LC circuit resonates at a certain frequency, you just need to know the formula is 1 over 2 pi times the square root of LC and be able to plug numbers in. hamstudy will drill you on those until they stick. the reactance questions kind of have a rhythm to them once you've seen enough of them.

that said, and im probably going to sound like an elmer here, if you actually want to use HF and understand whats going on with your antenna and radio, taking a bit more time with the impedance concepts pays off later. i passed general years ago kind of on autopilot and then found myself totally lost when i was trying to troubleshoot my antenna and had to go back and learn it all anyway. so maybe split the difference, learn enough to pass but keep a note of what confused you and revisit it once youre on the air.

band plan stuff yeah its pretty reasonable, just remember general doesnt get everything, theres some portions of each band still extra only. caught me off guard on practice tests a couple times.

went through the same thing like six months ago. what helped me was just hammering the practice exams over and over on hamstudy until my score was consistently in the 80s and then i went and took it. passed with a few to spare. the impedance and reactance stuff i honestly just pattern matched, im not gonna lie.

40m is so worth it by the way. first night i had my general i stayed up way too late just spinning the dial. good luck with it