so ive been a Tech for about two years now and honestly been mostly doing VHF/UHF stuff, some APRS, the usual. but ive been watching guys on 40m during Field Day and it just looks like way more fun, all those contacts and the DX and whatever. figured maybe its time to actually go for the General ticket.

my question is kind of dumb maybe but how different is the General exam from the Tech? like i remember the Tech being not that bad but i also studied for like 3 weeks. is the General question pool harder or is it more of the same kind of stuff? and is there anything specific i should focus on, the HF propagation stuff or the regulations side of things? i looked at the question pool briefly and some of the electrical theory stuff made my eyes glaze over a bit ngl

also do i have to retake the Tech exam or does that stay once im licensed? i know the answer is probably obvious but i dont want to assume anything

the Tech stays, you dont retake anything, you just add the General on top of it. your call sign might change if you want it to but plenty of people keep their old one.

as for difficulty - honestly i thought General was a bit harder than Tech but not by a huge amount. the electrical theory stuff, yeah some of it is a little more involved, things like calculating impedance and understanding how a superheterodyne receiver works at a basic level. but you dont need to actually understand all of it deeply, you kind of just need to recognize the right answer which sounds bad but thats how the pool based testing works. use HamStudy.org or the ARRL General study guide and just grind the questions. i passed with like 10 days of studying maybe 30-45 min a day. propagation and the band plan stuff for HF is actually pretty interesting once you get into it, that part didnt feel like studying at all.

the bigger deal honestly is just getting on HF once you pass. the bands can be humbling at first, 40m can be a wall of noise if you dont know what youre listening for.

went through this same thing last spring. the electrical theory section tripped me up a little but i just kept doing practice exams on HamStudy until my scores were consistently above 85% and then felt pretty good about it. passed first try with a few wrong, dont remember exactly how many.

the HF priveleges are totally worth it by the way. first time i made a contact on 20m with someone like 1500 miles away using my little wire antenna i was pretty hooked