Amanda Johnson64

yeah what he said about just listening to the first few check-ins is the best advice. i did my first net check-in like 3 weeks after getting my license and i just kind of blurted out my call and the NCS said thanks and moved on and that was it, total anticlimax haha. you're going to be fine.
the special event thing — if you heard about it on a local repeater or club meeting someone probably has details. clubs usually announce those. also the special event stations often run for a whole weekend so even if you missed saturday there might still be sunday.

yeah the waterfall thing is real, took me a good month before i stopped just staring at it. still catch myself doing it on 40m when things get busy around sunset
the fan on mine kicks up noticeably when you're running anything close to 100w for a while, at QRP levels it barely moves. if it really bothers you there's a mod floating around where guys have replaced the fan with a quieter Noctua but honestly i never bothered. you kind of tune it out after a while
came from an FT-857D so it was a pretty big jump for me in terms of sheer receiver performance, the roofing filter situation on the 7300 is so much better for crowded band conditions, night and day on 40 when the EU stations are coming in and everyone and their brother is on SSB

i did my first one earlier this year and had the same logging confusion lol. took me like three tries to figure out the submission process but once you do it once its pretty straightforward. also being out in nature with the radio is genuinely addictive, ive done probably 8 or 9 activations now and every single one has been more fun than the last. what state forest was it if you dont mind me asking, im always looking for new references to hunt from home

so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and honestly i mostly just mess around on 2m and 70cm but ive been hearing people talk about HF and it sounds really interesting, especially the idea of actually talking to people in other states or countries without needing a repeater or anything like that
my question is i guess how hard is the general exam compared to tech? i remember the tech exam wasnt too bad but some of the questions were weird. i heard general has a lot of electrical theory stuff and im not great at math. do you actually have to do a bunch of calculations or is it mostly just memorizing the question pool? also is there a good study guide or website people use, i saw some stuff online but wasnt sure what was actually useful vs just garbage
also what HF bands do you even get with general vs what extra class gets, is it worth just going straight for extra or should i not get ahead of myself