ok so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, my neighbor has a big antenna setup and it got me curious. i looked online but honestly i got kind of overwhelmed with all the different license classes and study sites and stuff. like i dont even know if i should just go straight for general or start with technician first or what. do people still do walk-in testing or do i have to schedule something ahead of time. also is the test actually hard because i have zero background in electronics, like none at all

technician first, 100%. dont overthink it. the pool is like 400 something questions and the actual exam pulls from that so if you just grind through hamstudy.org for a week or two you'll be fine. i had no electronics background either when i started and passed first try. the tricky part is just the math questions but honestly most of them you can kind of logic through without really understanding the formula deeply. just learn what the question is looking for.

for testing, it depends on your area. some clubs do walk-ins but a lot moved to scheduled sessions after covid and just never went back. arrl has a search tool to find sessions near you. some vecs also do online testing now which is super convenient if theres nothing local for a while.

yeah hamstudy is what everyone recommends and its what i used, just do the practice exams over and over until youre consistently passing. i think i took maybe 3 weeks studying maybe 20 minutes a day? passed with only missing like 2 questions. the license itself is free now too which is nice, well the FCC fee got waived a while back i think, or maybe there's still the VEC fee, i honestly dont remember exactly how that works now but its cheap either way