so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, my neighbor has this big antenna setup in his backyard and it got me curious. i looked up what you need to do to actually get licensed and honestly its kind of overwhelming. theres like the technician test and then higher ones i guess? i dont even know if i need to memorize all that electrical theory stuff or if its mostly multiple choice where you can just kind of figure it out. been watching some youtube videos but they all seem to assume you already know stuff.

anyway does anyone have advice on where to start studying, how hard is the test really, and how long did it take you to feel ready? i work full time so i cant dedicate like 8 hours a day to this or anything like that

honestly the technician exam is way more approachable than it looks at first. the question pool is public, all of it, so technically you could just memorize answers without understanding anything but i'd say dont do that because you'll be totally lost once you actually get on the air and something doesnt work.

what worked for me was hamstudy.org, its free and it quizzes you on the actual pool questions and tracks which ones you're getting wrong. i spent maybe 2-3 weeks doing like 20-30 minutes a night before bed and passed first try. the electrical theory questions look scary but a lot of it is stuff you can just learn the pattern for, like ohms law, you dont need to be an electrical engineer.

also check if your area has an ARRL affiliated club because a lot of them do license classes and testing sessions, sometimes even on weekends. made a huge difference having someone to ask questions to in person rather than just staring at a screen

i passed mine like three months ago and was in the exact same spot you are lol. hamstudy was what everyone told me to use and it really does work. i think i took the actual exam after maybe 10 days of casual studying, maybe 20-25 min a day. got a 91% which surprised me honestly

the thing nobody told me is that after you pass you have to wait for your callsign to show up in the FCC database before you can transmit, took about four days for me which felt like forever