so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now mostly because my neighbor has a big antenna setup and he talks to people all over the world which i thought was pretty cool. he told me i need to get a license first which i knew but i dont really know what that means in terms of like how hard it is or how long it takes or what i need to study. i looked at the FCC website and it was kind of confusing. is there like a standard way people do this? im assuming i start with the technician class license but beyond that im lost. do you have to go somewhere to take the test or can you do it online or what

yeah technician is definitely where you start, thats the entry level one. honestly it's not that bad at all. the question pool is public so you can just go to hamstudy.org and grind through the practice questions, most people pass within a few weeks of casual studying. the actual exam is 35 questions and you need like 26 right to pass. for finding a test session your best bet is to look up a local amateur radio club, most of them run VE sessions pretty regularly. some clubs also do them online now through zoom which is convenient if you dont have anything nearby. your neighbor being into it is actually a huge help because he can probably point you toward his club and maybe even drive you to the exam. the hardest part for most people is the electrical theory stuff but honestly if you just do the practice tests over and over it clicks eventually even if you dont fully understand why

I did mine about six months ago and used the ARRL Technician manual which was fine but honestly hamstudy dot org was way more useful just because it shows you the actual questions and tracks which ones you keep getting wrong. I think I studied maybe two weeks on and off and passed first try. The test itself felt easier than the practice ones which was a nice surprise. One thing nobody told me beforehand is you need to bring a government ID to the exam session so dont forget that like i almost did lol