so i passed my technician last spring and ive been on 2m and 70cm for a few months now mostly just doing local repeaters and some simplex. its fine but honestly i want to get on HF and actually work some DX, talk to people further than 50 miles away lol. everyone keeps telling me to just go ahead and get my general already.

my question is like how much harder is the general exam compared to technician? i studied for tech using the hamstudy.org thing for about 2 weeks and passed no problem. is general similar or is it way more involved? i dont really have a background in electronics or math or anything like that. also is it worth just trying to cram both general and extra at the same time or is that crazy

any advice would be helpful, i dont even know what i dont know at this point if that makes sense

general is definitely a step up from tech but its not crazy hard if you already passed tech. the pool has more questions and some of the electrical theory stuff is a bit more involved, like youll see questions about impedance and reactance and propagation that tech barely touches. but honestly if hamstudy worked for you before just do the same thing. i think i studied maybe 3-4 weeks for general and felt comfortable going in.

i wouldnt try to do both general and extra at the same time unless you have a ton of free time. the extra pool is big and the questions get pretty deep into theory. better to just knock out general, get on HF and actually use those privileges for a while, then come back for extra when you feel like it. thats what most people do. once you get on 40m and start making contacts youll be way more motivated anyway trust me

im kind of in the same boat actually, just passed tech in august and been looking at the general pool. some of it is genuinely confusing to me, the stuff about operating modes and the band plan questions are fine but the circuit stuff trips me up sometimes. i just keep hammering hamstudy until i get consistent scores above 80% and then ill go find a test session. havent done it yet but planning to before the year is out