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You’ve passed your General or Extra license test after your time as a Technician. So what now? The good news is, a lot of what you did as a Tech, carries over to your time as a General/Extra. You gain a lot of new privileges and are opened up to more operating paths. Below is just a little bit of what there is available to you now!

1. Choosing Your First HF Rig: Defining Your Mission

Earning your General or Extra class license opens up the world of HF, but choosing your first “shack-in-a-box” is a major decision. Before you buy, ask yourself: What is my primary mission?

The Home Station (The “Base” Profile)

If you want a permanent setup for chasing DX, participating in nets, and exploring digital modes from the comfort of your desk, look for a full-featured base station.

Top Picks: The Icom 7300 (and the new 7300 MK2) or the Yaesu FT-991A.
- Why: These are “shack-in-a-box” solutions. They feature built-in antenna tuners, high-resolution waterfall displays, and integrated digital interfaces that make setup a breeze.
- Provides everything you need out of the box, perfect for newer hams getting started with HF.
- Price points are reasonable and they go on sale frequently.

Mid-Tier Performance

The Icom IC-7610
- A direct step up from the 7300, the 7610 is a high-performance SDR (Software Defined Radio) with a large, beautiful display.
- Key Advantage: It features Dual Independent Receivers. This allows you to watch two different bands at the same time or monitor a DX station’s “split” frequency with ease.
The Yaesu FTDX10
- While it is smaller than the 7610, the FTDX10 uses a “Hybrid SDR” design that has consistently ranked near the very top of the Sherwood Engineering receiver performance charts.
- Key Advantage: Its narrow-band roofing filters provide incredible interference rejection, making it a favorite for those living in RF-noisy environments or active contesters.

The Mobile & Portable Ops

If your goal is POTA (Parks on the Air), SOTA (Summits on the Air), or mounting a radio in your vehicle, size and power consumption are your biggest factors.

The High-Power Portable: The Yaesu FT-891. This is a rugged, 100W powerhouse in a mobile frame. While you trade away the internal tuner and waterfall display of the 991A, it is nearly half the price and far more durable for field use.
The QRP Enthusiast: Brands like Xiegu offer entry-level radios that are perfect for low-power (QRP) operations (typically under 20 watts). These are ultra-lightweight and run a long time on small batteries, making them ideal for hikers.

The Golden Rule of Gear

The most expensive mistake you can make is buying a radio that doesn’t fit your long-term goals. If the radio you truly want is a few hundred dollars out of reach, wait and save. It is better to wait an extra three months for the right “forever radio” than to buy a rig today that you’ll be looking to sell on a hamfest table by next summer.

2. Setting up your first home station

You picked out your radio, but your still missing some important gear. Before pulling the trigger on the radio, make sure you have everything else you need for your home station.

Getting and setting up your home station is an exciting part of any amateur radio operators journey into the hobby. It requires a few things to get you going, and can be as simple as a charger for your HT setup on your desk so you can grab it when a call comes through. To something as complex as multiple shelves full of radios, antenna switchers, antenna matchers, digital interfaces, and a computer (or two).

For HF you need four main components. The radio (transceiver), the power supply, the antenna, and the coax to connect it all together. If you have those 4 things, you can setup a home station. Of course there’s plenty more you can get, but those 4 are what you need to get started. Check out the guides below to see how to setup your first HF home station.

Planning your First Home Station

Planning your First Home Station Download

Coaxial Cable Selection

Coaxial Cable Selection for your HF Download

3. What can I do with my new privileges?

There’s so much to do with radio. You can talk to people around the world using simplex (HF). You can participate in the many radio contest and special events going on at any given time. You can setup at a POTA (Parks on the Air) location and activate the park, or hunt parks from the comfort of your home.

Here’s a breakdown of a few things you can do with your G/E licenses.

POTA and SOTA (Parks on the Air/Summits on the Air) encourage hams to take their equipment out of the house and into the great outdoors. Setup at a local state or national park, activate 10 hunters, and get the credit for that park or summit. Gives you a real world opportunity to setup your equipment in a different environment than your home. Great practice if you plan on doing EMCOMM.