so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and mostly been doing 2m and 70cm stuff, some aprs, worked a few local repeaters. but ive been hearing guys on the club net talking about working DX and chasing contacts on 40m and 20m and honestly it sounds way more interesting than what im doing now.

my question is how hard is the General exam compared to Technician. i remember the tech exam being not that bad, i used hamstudy for like 2 weeks and passed no problem. is General more of the same or is there actually more complicated stuff i need to really understand. im a little worried about the electrical theory parts because i was never great at math. also like once i upgrade, what can i actually do that i couldnt before, i know HF but the band privileges are kind of confusing to me still

honestly the General exam is harder than Tech but not by a huge amount if you use the same approach. there's more electrical theory yeah, like you'll see questions about impedance and reactance and some basic antenna stuff, but hamstudy will get you through it if you stick with it. i'd say give yourself maybe 3-4 weeks instead of 2. the pool isn't that much bigger.

the privileges are worth it big time though. you get big chunks of 40m, 20m, 17m, 15m, 10m... those are your bread and butter HF bands. 40m is great for regional stuff in the evenings, 20m is your go-to for DX during the day when conditions are decent. you wont have full privileges like an Extra but you'll have enough to keep you busy for years honestly. just get on hamstudy and start grinding the questions, it'll start clicking after a while

I upgraded from Tech to General last spring and the thing that tripped me up the most was the operating procedures and band plan stuff, not the math. Like I expected the formulas to kill me but I just memorized the ones that kept showing up and that was enough. The harder part for me was all the rules and regs questions because some of them are weirdly specific.

One thing I'll say is dont wait too long after you pass to actually get on HF because it can feel overwhelming at first and you might just... not do it. I let my General sit for like 6 weeks before I even tried calling CQ on 40m and I wish I'd just jumped in sooner. Propagation changes a lot depending on time of year too so just get a cheap used HF rig and start playing around, thats really the only way to learn it