so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now mostly because my neighbor does it and it seems really cool but also i want to be able to use a handheld radio for emergency stuff. anyway i finally decided to just go for the technician license and i bought like two different study books and now im kind of overwhelmed because theyre both different and i dont know which one is actually good or if i should just use the hamstudy website thing people mention

also the question pool thing confuses me - someone said the questions are all public and you just memorize them but that seems too easy? like is the actual test literally just questions from that pool or are there trick questions or something i should know about. i feel like im probably overthinking this

yeah you are definitely overthinking it haha. the actual exam questions come directly from the published question pool, no tricks, no surprises. the FCC requires the pools to be public so thats just how it works. hamstudy.org is honestly all you need, just do the practice exams over and over until youre consistently getting 80+ percent and youll be fine. the pass threshold is 74 percent i think, 26 out of 35 questions.

the books are fine if you actually want to understand the material which i do recommend because otherwise you pass and then have no idea what youre doing when you key up for the first time. but strictly for passing the exam, hamstudy and maybe the ARRL tech manual if you want to go deeper. dont stress it, most people pass on the first try if they put in even a couple weeks of casual studying

i passed mine about 4 months ago and honestly just used hamstudy on my phone while waiting for stuff at work. took me maybe 2 weeks. the electrical stuff was the only part that tripped me up a little, ohms law and the antenna theory questions. if you see a question about frequency and wavelength just remember the formula and youre good. the rest is mostly rules and regulations which you kind of absorb just by reading through it a few times