so ive been a tech for about two years now and mostly just been doing 2m and 70cm stuff, some APRS, helped out with a couple of public service events. i enjoy it but honestly i feel like im kind of stuck on the local stuff and want to try reaching out further. people keep telling me i should upgrade to General and get on HF but every time i look at the question pool i just kind of freeze up because there's so much about electrical theory and propagation and stuff that i honestly dont fully understand.

my question is basically how hard is it really compared to the tech exam? like is it a big jump? i studied for maybe two weeks for tech and passed fine but i feel like general is on another level. also what resources did people actually use, i found hamstudy.org but not sure if thats enough or if i should get a book too. and once i do pass what should i expect when i actually get on HF for the first time, is it confusing at all

honestly the jump from tech to general felt bigger to me than it actually was once i sat down and really studied. like the question pool looks intimidating but a lot of it is just memorization same as tech. the electrical theory stuff like ohms law and the LC circuit questions arent that bad once you work through a few practice tests. i used hamstudy exclusively and just did practice exams every day for like three weeks, probably 45 minutes to an hour each time, and passed with only a couple wrong. the book is nice if you want to actually understand why the answers are what they are but if you just want to pass, hamstudy plus maybe the ARRL general class audio course is plenty for most people.

as for HF itself yeah the first time you tune around 40m at night and start hearing stations from all over it's kind of wild. 40 meters is probably where i'd start if i were you, good mix of regional and longer distance stuff depending on time of day. just be ready for the bands to not always cooperate, propagation is its own whole thing you'll learn by doing more than anything else

im in basically the same boat as you right now lol, been a tech for 18 months and keep putting off studying for general. the electrical theory part is what gets me too. i started using hamstudy last week and i gotta say the practice tests actually make the material click better than just reading through it. what i do is when i get a question wrong i actually look up why, like go down a rabbit hole about it, and that seems to help it stick. havent taken the exam yet but im shooting for next month when theres a session at my local club.