so ive had my tech license for about two years now and mostly been doing vhf/uhf stuff, some DMR, a little bit of satellite which was cool but kind of a rabbit hole. anyway my buddy keeps bugging me to get on HF with him and i figured maybe its time to actually go for the general upgrade.

my question is i guess how different is the general exam from the tech? like is it way more math heavy or is it mostly just memorizing the question pool again? i remember the tech wasnt too bad but some of the electrical theory stuff tripped me up a little. also is there stuff specifically about HF operating procedures i should know or is it more just rules and regulations type questions?

ive been looking at hamstudy.org which is what i used for tech, seems like they have the general pool on there too. anyone have tips or is just drilling the questions enough to pass or do you actually need to understand the material

hamstudy is exactly what you want, i did the same thing when i upgraded last spring. honestly the general pool isnt that much harder than tech, theres a bit more propagation stuff which is actually pretty interesting once you get into it, like understanding why 40m works great at night but 10m is dead half the time. the math isnt super intense, mostly just ohms law stuff and a little bit of decibel calculations but nothing that'll destroy you if you take a few minutes to actually understand the formulas instead of just memorizing answers.

one thing i'd say though is dont just grind questions without reading anything. grab the ARRL general study guide or even just read some of the explanations on hamstudy when you get something wrong. when i passed i felt like i actually knew why i got things right, which helped a lot when i got on HF and had no idea what i was doing operating wise haha. the exam itself is 35 questions and you need like 26 to pass so its pretty forgiving.

the jump is pretty manageable tbh. been a general for about 8 months and the test wasnt the hard part, figuring out what to actually do on HF after passing was way more confusing lol. like nobody tells you about all the unwritten etiquette stuff, finding a clear frequency, listening before transmitting, all that. so id say study enough to pass but also just be ready to learn a ton once you actually get on the air because its a different world from repeaters