so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, like probably a year or so, and i finally decided to just go for it and get my technician license. the problem is i have no idea where to start. i looked at the FCC website and it was kind of confusing and i dont really know if i need to study specific material or if theres like a book i should get or what. a friend told me to just use some website but i cant remember the name of it. is there a pool of questions you study from or is the test more like open ended? also how hard is it really, some people say its easy and some say it took them a few tries. just want to get a realistic picture before i dump a lot of time into it

honestly its not that bad, dont let people psych you out. the question pool is public so you literally know every possible question that could show up on the exam. HamStudy.org is probably the best free resource out there, just make flashcards on there and drill them until you're hitting like 85% or better consistently. there's also the ARRL Technician book if you want to actually understand the material instead of just memorizing answers, which i'd recommend because some of the questions about things like antenna theory or basic electronics make way more sense once you get the context. the test is 35 questions and you need 26 right to pass. find a local club doing a VE session, a lot of them are pretty relaxed and some clubs even do free study sessions before the exam. i think i studied maybe two weeks casual evenings and passed fine, but i already knew a little electronics from work so your mileage may vary

yeah HamStudy was what my buddy told me about too, i just passed mine like two months ago. i was honestly kind of nervous going in but the VEs were super chill. one thing i'll say is dont skip the question about the phonetic alphabet, i almost forgot to review that section and it came up. also the part about repeater offsets tripped me up a little at first but once you just memorize the standard offsets for 2m and 70cm its fine. took me maybe three weeks studying maybe 20 minutes a day and i passed with a few to spare