Yesterday when I was testing, the VE's were slow as hell. I sat around for a good 30 minutes after I was told I passed to get the paperwork, so I decided to do some recon for you crazy kids... Anyways I saw a bunch of people who passed the tech, but were scared to death of the general. I convinced a few of them total of 5 to go ahead and take the general, it was free. Of the five the majority of them got between 15 and 17 right. You need 25 to pass. If you think about it, every single one of them was already more than halfway home. One guy got 22 right.
So I asked them all, what part did you really scratch your head on, just didn't know and tossed a guess up. The majority answer was on the frequencies, the band limits, and which bands were USB and LSB.
The advice to take both tests same day is good advice. I think all of you wanting to get to HF should study for both. That said, here is some additional advice, for those of you who have bought radios before getting licensed, or those techs out there wanting to upgrade to General. Print off the attachment i've attached to this post and post it on the wall next to your rig. Turn the radio on and listen, unplug the mic and put it in the drawer.. You don't need to worry about anything. Stick a long wire into a pl259 if you have to. No fancy antenna, swr readings nothing just power it on. LISTEN, learn by doing which bands are LSB, and USB. Only listen inside the general portion of the bands so you get to memorize the band edges.
Every one of them to a man, said it wasn't as scary as they thought, and they felt had they understood the bands, and band edges and modes they could of gotten 4-5 more correct. That puts the average person at 20 right, 5 from passing, before studying at all. Picking this up isn't that big of a deal!
Good luck!!
