so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, my neighbor has a big antenna setup and he let me listen in on some stuff last summer and i got hooked. anyway i decided i want to actually get licensed but honestly i dont even know what the difference is between technician and general and all that. do i have to take them in order or can i just jump to one of the higher ones? and whats the best way to study, i saw there are apps and websites but i dont know which ones are actually useful vs just garbage. i work full time so i dont have a ton of time to sit down with a book or whatever. any advice from people who went through this recently would be really helpful

yeah you have to go in order, technician first then general then extra, thats just how the FCC structures it. but honestly the technician exam isnt that bad at all. i used hamstudyhq.com or actually i think its just hamstudy.org, and i just did like 20-30 questions a night for maybe two weeks and passed no problem. the question pool is public so once you really get familiar with all of it you kind of just know whats coming. there are 35 questions on the actual test and you need 26 right i think. some of the electrical theory stuff tripped me up at first but there are formulas and you dont really need to deeply understand it you just need to know how to use ohms law basically. find a local club too because they usually host testing sessions and some of them do free study nights which honestly helped me more than anything else i tried

Gordon West has study books that have been around forever, some people swear by them. personally i think hamstudy.org is all you need for tech, save the books for general or extra where the material gets more involved. one thing i'd say is dont just memorize answers without understanding anything because even a little bit of context helps them stick. especially the band plans and what technicians can actually do vs what you think you can do, that part confuses a lot of new people. also check if there's a VE session near you through the ARRL website, some areas have them pretty frequently and some you have to wait a while so look that up sooner than later