ok so ive been wanting to get into ham radio for a while now and finally decided to just go for it and get my technician license. problem is i dont really know how to study for this thing. i downloaded some app and it just throws questions at me but i feel like im just memorizing answers without actually understanding anything. is that... fine? like does it actually work that way or do i need to read a whole book first

also the question pool is huge. someone told me theres like 400+ questions and only 35 show up on the test. do i really need to know all of them or is there some way to focus on specific sections. the math stuff especially is freaking me out a bit, the ohms law questions and stuff like that

honestly the memorization approach works fine for passing the test, plenty of people do it that way. hamstudy.org is probably the best free resource out there, it tracks which questions you keep getting wrong and focuses on those. if you keep grinding it until you're consistently hitting like 85-90% on the practice tests you'll be in good shape for the real thing.

that said if you actually want to understand what youre doing on the air, gordon west's technician study guide is worth flipping through. its not a huge book and he explains the why behind most of the questions. the math stuff is really just a handful of formulas and once you see how ohms law works even once it kind of clicks. E=IR and thats basically it for most of the tech exam math.

i passed mine about 4 months ago doing basically just the app thing. arrl has one, hamstudy has one, i just did like 20-30 questions a day for maybe 3 weeks and that was enough. the math scared me too but there are only maybe 5 or 6 questions on the actual exam that involve any real calculation and if you just practice those specific ones youll be fine. dont overthink it