so I've been interested in ham radio for a while now, my neighbor has a big antenna setup and it got me curious. I looked it up and apparently you need a license? there's a technician exam and then higher ones after that I guess. I dont really know what any of it means yet. is there like a good book or website people use to study or do most folks just wing it. also how hard is the test actually, I heard its multiple choice but I have no idea how many questions or what the pass rate is or anything. any help would be great I'm kind of just starting from zero here

welcome to the rabbit hole haha. okay so the good news is the technician exam really isnt that bad, its 35 questions and you need 26 right to pass so theres actually a decent margin for error. all the questions come from a public question pool so nothing is a surprise if you study from the right stuff. most people use HamStudy.org which is free and does a really good job of tracking which questions you're getting wrong and drilling those specifically. some people like the ARRL Technician book too if you want something more structured but honestly hamStudy got me through mine in like 2 weeks of just doing practice tests on my phone during lunch breaks. the actual exam fee is usually around 15 bucks at a VE session, you can find those through the ARRL website. once you pass they get your callsign issued in a few days and you're on the air

I just did mine about 3 months ago so I can say from recent experience, dont overthink the electrical theory stuff if it trips you up at first. just keep doing practice tests and eventually the answers start sticking even if you dont fully understand why. I probably did 200+ practice questions total and felt really ready by test day. passed with only 2 wrong which surprised me honestly