so ive been wanting to get my technician license for like a year now and i finally decided to just do it. the problem is i dont really know where to start with studying. i looked at the question pool on the arrl website and it's like 400+ questions and i got kind of overwhelmed and closed the tab lol. a friend told me to just use hamstudy.org and memorize the answers without really understanding them but that feels wrong? like i feel like i should actually know what im doing especially for the electrical stuff. but then another guy at a club meeting said the opposite, just memorize and learn the rest on the air. idk who to listen to. also what about study guides, is the arrl technician manual worth buying or is there free stuff that covers the same material. i have maybe 2-3 weeks before i want to take the test at the local club session. is that enough time

hamstudy is honestly fine and you can use it to actually learn not just memorize, the explanations on there are pretty decent for most of the questions. the thing about the tech pool is a lot of it really is just pattern recognition, the electrical theory questions are not super deep, ohms law and some basic stuff about antennas and propagation. i wouldnt sweat buying the arrl book unless you really want a physical thing to read, gordon west study guides are popular too and cheaper. 2-3 weeks is plenty if you put in like 20-30 minutes a day, i passed mine in about 10 days studying on lunch breaks. just keep doing practice exams on hamstudy until you're consistently hitting 85-90% and you'll be fine on the real thing. the actual exam feels easier than the practice ones somehow

yeah what he said about hamstudy, thats what most people use now. i will say though dont completely ignore the why behind the answers, not because the test cares but because when you get on the air and something isnt working you'll be glad you understood at least a little bit about how antennas and feedlines work. the FCC rules and regs questions are just straight memorization theres no way around it but the tech theory section isnt bad at all. i bought the arrl manual years ago and honestly used it maybe twice, the online stuff is just more convenient. 3 weeks is more than enough time, some people walk in cold and pass but i wouldnt recommend that