so ive been a Tech for about 8 months now and honestly ive been having a blast on VHF but i keep hearing people talk about HF and working DX and all that and it sounds really cool. i started looking at the General pool questions and honestly some of it is confusing me, like the electrical stuff and the regulations sections. im not totally sure what i should be focusing on or if i should just memorize the whole pool. is there like a certain part thats harder than the rest or should i treat it all the same. also does anyone know if my Tech privileges change at all once i upgrade or do i just get the new HF bands on top of what i already have. sorry if this is a vague question i just dont really know what i dont know yet

the General exam isnt too bad honestly, i was worried about it too but i passed first try after about 3 weeks of studying with HamStudy.org. the electrical formulas tripped me up at first, ohms law and stuff around reactance and impedance, but once you work through a few practice tests it starts clicking. the regulations stuff is just memorization mostly, propagation questions are actually kind of interesting once you get into it. and yeah you keep all your Tech privileges, General just layers on top, you get access to most of the HF bands with some sub-band restrictions depending on mode. 40 meters is a good place to start once you upgrade, lots of activity and decent propagation most evenings.

i did mine a few months ago and the part that got me was the antenna stuff, like calculating antenna lengths and feed impedance questions. not super hard but just felt random to me at the time. just run through the question pool a bunch of times on one of those practice sites and youll be fine. the real exam felt pretty similar to the practice tests which was reassuring. good luck