so ive been a Tech for about 8 months now and mostly just been doing 2m/70cm stuff with my HT and a j-pole in the attic. its been fun but im starting to get curious about HF and everyone keeps telling me to just go get my General already. i looked at the question pool and honestly it looks pretty intimidating, like there's a lot of stuff in there about electrical theory and propagation that i dont really understand. i remember the Tech exam being pretty manageable but this feels like a bigger jump.

is it actually as hard as it looks or am i overthinking it. i dont have any background in electronics, just kind of learned enough to pass Tech and figured it out as i went. also wondering if its even worth it before i have any HF gear, like should i get the license first and then figure out the radio situation or the other way around. kind of going back and forth on it

honestly just do it, the General exam is not that bad. i was in the same boat about two years ago, zero electronics background, and i used HamStudy.org basically every day on my lunch break for maybe three weeks and passed on the first try. the electrical theory stuff looks scary but the question pool is finite so you can just brute force memorize a lot of it and get by fine. understanding it helps but its not strictly required to pass.

as for whether to get the license before the gear, yeah definitely get the license first. no point dropping money on an HF rig if something comes up and you dont follow through on the exam. and once you have General you can actually listen to the bands on a cheap SDR or something while you save up for a real radio. 40 meters especially is pretty active and you'll want to be able to transmit and join in sooner or later, its way more interesting than just listening

i just upgraded like six weeks ago so this is fresh for me. the propagation section tripped me up at first but once it clicks it actually makes sense and helps you understand why the bands do what they do. i used the Gordon West book and also just hammered the practice tests on qrz. took me maybe a month of casual studying, wasnt grinding it every day or anything.

the privileges are worth it though, 40m and 20m especially open up a whole different world. first time i made a contact on 20m i was kind of shocked how far it went