so ive been a General for about two years now and i keep going back and forth on whether to bother with the Amateur Extra. like i passed the General no problem but when i looked at the Extra question pool a while back some of that math made my head spin a bit. impedance matching, filter theory, all that stuff. i did okay in school with math but that was a long time ago and im a little rusty.

mostly i want the Extra for the HF privileges, theres a few spots on 75 and 40 that i cant use right now and it bugs me when im trying to join a net and the frequency is just outside my range. also just feels like i should finish what i started you know? anyone been in this situation and actually gone through with it, was the extra theory as rough as it looks or does it kind of click once you study for a while?

honestly the theory looks worse than it is. i put it off for like three years thinking the same thing and then sat down with the ARRL Extra Class License Manual and a lot of it started to make sense after a couple weeks. the LC circuit stuff and the filter questions especially, once you see why the formulas work they arent so bad to remember. there are a few questions in the pool that are just straight up memorization and yeah those are a grind but the question pool is finite so you kind of just grind through it.

the privileges are worth it, especially if youre doing any HF and want to get into the CW segments or those phone sub-bands you mentioned. also some of the extra segments are noticeably less crowded which is a nice bonus. i'd say just start studying and see how you feel after a month, you might surprise yourself

i just passed mine like six weeks ago. the math isnt as bad as it looks because honestly a lot of the questions you can work out with just basic algebra if you remember your formulas. i made a little cheat sheet just for studying not for the test obviously lol and that helped a lot. the hardest part for me was the operating procedures stuff and some of the obscure regs honestly, the theory i kind of enjoyed. good luck if you go for it