so ive been a technician for about 8 months now and honestly the HF thing is really starting to pull at me. i can hear guys on 40m with my little HT when im near my buddy's antenna setup and it just sounds like so much more going on down there compared to the repeater stuff im used to.

anyway im thinking about going for the general ticket but i honestly dont know where to start. i used the hamstudy.org thing for my tech exam and it worked pretty well but the general pool seems way bigger and theres stuff in there about like propagation and operating procedures that i feel like i dont really understand, im just memorizing answers which feels wrong. is that how most people do it or should i actually try to learn the theory first before drilling questions

also what HF privileges does general actually get you because i looked at the chart and its kind of confusing with all the different segments. do you basically get access to everything or is there still a lot locked behind extra class

honestly the general exam isnt that much harder than tech if you put in a few weeks with hamstudy. the pool feels bigger but a lot of it clicks faster once you have the tech foundation. the propagation stuff especially, once it starts making sense it really makes sense if you know what i mean.

and yeah memorizing answers is basically how everyone does it, dont feel bad about that. youll learn the actual theory when you get on the air and start experiencing it. like reading about greyline propagation is one thing but the first time you work someone in europe on 17m at sunrise it just suddenly makes sense in your head.

as for privileges, general gets you a solid chunk of HF. youre not getting all of the phone portions on like 75m and a few other spots but honestly for getting started its more than enough. 40m and 20m alone will keep you busy for years. extra class opens up those extra slices but dont let anyone pressure you into rushing for it, plenty of people have been happy generals for decades.

I just upgraded to General last spring after being Tech for almost two years and the exam was way less scary than I expected. Took me maybe three weeks of doing question pools on my lunch breaks. The electrical theory questions tripped me up a little but there arent that many of them and the formulas are pretty basic.

The band privileges thing confused me too at first. The way I think about it now is that on most HF bands you get a big middle chunk for phone and data and CW, the Extra class guys get a little more on the edges but its not like youre locked out of anything significant. 20 meters is where I spend most of my time and I have never once felt limited by my General privs up there.