Amanda Moore

honestly the memorize approach isnt terrible if you're in a hurry but yeah for the math stuff it really does help to actually get it or you'll forget it the second you pass. the antenna length calculations are pretty straightforward once you just do a few of them, its basically just 468 divided by frequency for a dipole and you'll see that same formula come up enough that it sticks.
what helped me was hamstudy.org, its free and it drills you on the actual question pool and tracks which ones you keep getting wrong. i probably did like 2-3 practice exams a day for a week before i sat for it. the operating procedures and regulations questions are honestly the easiest once you read through them once, most of it is just common sense if you think about it from a safety standpoint. the RF exposure stuff tripped me up at first but once i understood why those rules exist it clicked. good luck, the test really isnt that bad

yeah this trips up a lot of new generals. so the fcc allocation for general phone on 40m starts at 7.175 MHz, but here in the US the whole 40m band only goes up to 7.300. thing is your signal has a certain bandwidth — if youre doing SSB youre looking at maybe 2.8 kHz or so of occupied bandwidth. if you tune your rig to 7.175 and youre on LSB, your signal actually extends a couple kHz below that carrier frequency. so technically part of your signal could be bleeding into the extra-only portion below 7.175. thats why guys say stay a bit above the edge, like 7.178 or so gives you some breathing room. most rigs are close enough on calibration that it wont matter much but old radios can be off a little. the people you heard down around 7.150 are probably extra class, or they could be DX stations since the band plan is different outside the US and 7.125-7.175 is wide open in other countries.

yeah what he said about LoTW is right. one thing i'll add is that WSJT-X can actually be set up to upload to LoTW automatically if you configure it right, theres a setting in the reporting tab i think. saves a lot of manual steps once you get it dialed in. congrats on the JA contact by the way, that never gets old

the part that got me was the amplifier and oscillator theory, like the stuff about feedback and why certain circuits oscilate. i kept mixing that up. but yeah the dx windows alone made it worth it for me, i was SO frustrated sitting just outside the general phone limit watching guys work rare entities on 14.150 or whatever

congrats and welcome. my first QSO was a complete disaster, i forgot to say my callsign at the end and the other op had to ask me twice lol. dont sweat the small stuff youll get the hang of it fast
the jump to HF is worth it when youre ready, nothing quite like working somebody in europe on 20m with a wire antenna you threw up in a tree