so ive been a general for about 3 years now and honestly i use maybe a fraction of what i have access to already. but a buddy of mine keeps bugging me to just go ahead and do the extra class exam and i started looking at the pool of questions and... yeah thats a lot. like the stuff on filter design and transmission line theory and some of the oscillator stuff i havent thought about since school probably 20 years ago.

i guess my actual question is whether people feel like the extra privileges actually changed how they operated or if its more just the feeling of having done it. i mostly do HF, some casual contesting, a little DX chasing. the sub-bands that open up on 20 and 40 would be nice during contests but im not sure its worth digging through all that math again. does the theory stuff actually stick or do most people just cram and forget it

honest answer? i crammed for about 6 weeks using the question pool and a couple of youtube videos for the parts i really didnt get, passed on the first try, and forgot most of the filter math within a month. but the extra sub-band access on 40m during contests is genuinely worth it if you do any kind of competitive operating. you can actually find a run frequency down there instead of fighting everyone else in the general portion.

the theory stuff -- some of it actually did stick for me, the transmission line stuff clicked in a way it hadnt before and i ended up redoing my feedline setup after understanding what was actually happening with SWR. so i wouldnt say its useless even if you dont retain all of it. but yeah if your main goal is just to pass the exam, study the pool, dont overthink it.

the extra privelages opened up 60m channel options for me which mattered for emcomm stuff but thats probably not your use case. for dx and contesting yeah the lower portion of 20 and 40 makes a real difference, you hear stations down there during a pileup that you just cant work as a general. go for it id say, the exam isnt as bad as it looks once you get into the material