so ive had my technician for about 8 months now and honestly i mostly just do local repeaters and the occasional satellite pass but i keep hearing people talk about HF and working DX and i think i want to get into that. a buddy at my club said i should just go ahead and take the General exam but i dont really know where to start studying or how hard it actually is compared to the tech exam.

i remember the tech exam being kind of tricky in spots, mostly the electrical theory stuff. is General a lot harder than that or about the same? and is it worth it even if i dont have an HF rig yet, like should i get the license first and then figure out the equipment situation or the other way around

also someone mentioned there are certain bands i can already use as a tech on HF, is that right? i tried looking it up and got confused by the charts

General is definitely harder than tech but not like impossibly so. the electrical theory gets a bit deeper and theres more band plan stuff to memorize but if you study the question pool for a few weeks you should be fine. i used hamstudy.org and just drilled questions every day for maybe 3 weeks and passed with room to spare.

as for whether to get the license first or the radio first, personally id say get the license. no point dropping money on an HF rig before you even know what privileges youre going to have, and honestly studying for General will teach you a lot about HF operating that helps you make a better decision about what radio to buy anyway. you'll start understanding why people argue about different rigs and modes and all that.

and yeah techs do have some HF privileges, mostly 10 meters with phone and some CW segments on lower bands i think, but its pretty limited. General opens up a huge chunk of 40, 15, 10 and partial 20 meters which is where most of the action is

i literally just did this like two months ago, went from tech to General. the exam wasnt as bad as i thought it would be. the hardest part for me was the operating procedures and some of the propagation stuff, like understanding why certain bands are better at different times of day. that part felt kind of abstract when just reading about it but it makes a lot more sense once you actually get on the air

one thing i will say is dont sleep on just finding an exam session and signing up, sometimes that deadline pressure actually helps you buckle down and study lol. thats what i did and it worked out