so ive been a Tech for about 8 months now and honestly the HF thing is really starting to pull at me. been listening to 40m on my buddys rig and it sounds like a whole different world compared to what im doing on 2m/70cm. figured id start looking into the General exam but i dont even really know where to start or how different it is from the Tech exam.

like is it a lot harder? i remember the Tech test wasnt too bad once i just drilled the question pool for a couple weeks but im hearing the General has more actual theory in it, stuff about propagation and like electrical formulas and whatever. does that mean i actually have to understand the math or can i still just memorize the pool and pass? also what even are the HF privileges once you upgrade, can i just get on 20m right away or is there more to it

honestly it's not that bad, just more of the same grind. i did the General pool on HamStudy.org and passed maybe 6 weeks after i started studying. the math questions look scarier than they are, theres only like a handful of them and the formulas repeat. ohms law stuff mostly, maybe a little on resonance. you dont need to deeply understand it, the question pool is only like 430 something questions and you just need 74% to pass so yeah memorization gets you through it.

the HF privileges are worth it. as a general you get chunks of 40m, 20m, 15m and 10m among others. 20m is probably where youll spend most of your time starting out, DX all day on that band. just be aware of the phone segments vs the tech portions and dont transmit where you arent supposed to, the band plans are easy to look up.

yeah what he said. i was in the same spot like a year ago and i just used the arrl general book and hammered the practice tests on qrz. took me maybe 3 weeks. the electrical theory stuff tripped me up at first but once you see the same questions enough times you just kinda know the answer even if you dont totally get why lol. passed with like a 85 i think.

only thing id add is dont stress too much about which HF bands to use right away, just get on and listen first. 40m at night is wild, you can hear stuff from way far out even with a pretty basic antenna setup