so ive been a Tech for about 8 months now and mostly been doing VHF/UHF stuff, some APRS, got into DMR a little bit. but ive been hearing a lot about HF and honestly it sounds way more interesting than i expected. a guy at my club was working some station in europe on 20 meters last tuesday and it just looked like a ton of fun.

anyway i started looking at the General exam pool and its... a lot. like theres stuff in there about electrical theory and propagation and operating procedures that i really wasnt expecting. i guess my question is does it actually make sense to study for General or should i just push through and go straight for Extra? someone told me you have to pass General first anyway before Extra so i guess that answers that but i wanted to make sure. also what is actually the hardest part of the General exam because the electrical theory stuff is kind of freaking me out a bit

yeah you do have to get General before Extra, theres no skipping it. but honestly dont overthink the electrical theory, its not as bad as it looks on paper. most of it is like, you see the same question stems over and over and after a while your brain just knows the answer even if you dont fully understand the math behind it. i used the hamstudy.org flashcard thing for maybe 3 weeks and passed with room to spare.

the propagation questions tripped me up a little at first, stuff about which bands open at what times of day and why, but once you kind of get the basic idea of how the ionosphere works it starts to click. 20 meters is a great first HF band to mess with btw, especially if you just want to make contacts without a huge antenna setup. good luck, its totally worth doing

I upgraded from Tech to General last spring and the exam honestly wasn't that scary once I actually sat down with the question pool. I think people psych themselves out because the pool is big but remember you only need to answer 35 questions and you can miss up to 9 and still pass. The electrical theory section like calculating resonant frequency or impedance stuff, I just memorized the formulas and practiced them a few times, didn't try to deeply understand it all and that was fine for passing purposes.

One thing I wish someone had told me — once you get your General ticket, jump on 40 meters at night sometime. The band just comes alive, stations from all over the country and sometimes further. That was kind of the moment I understood why HF guys are so obsessed with it. The Extra is worth going for eventually but don't wait on General just because Extra exists, you'll want those HF priveledges sooner rather than later trust me.