so ive been wanting to get my tech license for like a year now and i finally just bought a book from amazon - the ARRL one i think - but honestly its kind of overwhelming. like i dont know if i should just be memorizing the question pool or actually trying to understand the material. my friend said just use HamStudy or whatever and grind the questions but that feels like cheating almost? i dont know. also how long does it actually take most people to pass, im not a total idiot about electronics but im not an engineer either. any tips would help

honestly your friend isnt wrong, the question pool method works fine for the tech exam. the pool is public and the actual test questions come straight from it so theres no mystery there. that said i did a mix of both when i studied - id read through the ARRL handbook section, get bored, then just hammer questions on HamStudy until stuff started clicking. the regulations stuff especially just kind of needs repetition more than understanding. took me maybe 3 weeks studying like 20-30 mins a night. some people do it in a weekend if they really commit. dont overthink it

the ARRL book is good but yeah it can feel like a lot. what i usually tell people is just start with HamStudy dot org and see how you do cold, no studying at all. that tells you real fast what you actually need to work on vs what you probably already know from general life experience. a lot of the basic electricity stuff isnt that bad if youve ever messed with anything electronic. the RF safety questions tripped me up more than anything else tbh, theres a few in there that feel weirdly specific. once you're consistently hitting like 85% or better on the practice exams you're probably good to go find a session