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I heard there is a browser extension which does this

In the era before the average net worth of a Congress person was in the tens of millions, it made sense because it prevented them from their wages being held hostage.

There is certainly a lot to learn, and you would benefit greatly from joining the hobby officially. If you are US-based, you can take the amateur radio exam after memorizing the answers for the exam (a legal and encouraged practice), the exam itself can be administered remotely via Zoom.

I am beyond my technical knowledge if I tried to explain why we use transformers to get an impedance match; I only know what we do.

Great questions, one which highlights my own knowledge gap beyond knowing that for a given feedline and antenna combination, you’ll have some measure of impedance. At the most basic level, your radio will “see” some impedance value. In the amateur radio world this is generally 50Ω. If our antenna system (feedline + radiator) presents 450Ω (quite common), we use a 9:1 transformer to get it to match. This allows us to use our radio on that system without (1) stray current returning to the radio and damage our transmission circuits, and (2) at full power but with inherent loss of signal owing to antenna inefficiency.

Case in point, I have a commercially-purchased multi-band EFHW antenna which presents varying amounts of impedance to the radio. This system includes a transformer (I think it’s 9:1) so that on the bands of interest, there’s a resistance match and as a result an SWR that’s suitable to make decent transmissions on.

As a tangential example, J-pole antennas have a built-in matching system which uses no special parts. It’s composed of a matching section and radiator. The combination of matching section, radiator length, and physical feedpoint allow this type of antenna to sort of self-manage impedance.

The difference here is that a j-pole is a monoband antenna, and a long wire with transformer can often be functional on many bands, depending on length, where the lowest useable frequency is the inverse of its length.

What challenges are you facing? It’s a small mercy that antenna fundamentals are basically the same across all frequencies. The resonant element must be sufficiently long as to present an impedance match (or be brought down through via a transformer; 9:1, 49:1, or whichever flavor you need).

On 40m (~7Mhz) a dipole would need to be ~67’ long. You can get away with shorter, bearing in mind the compromises which come with that.

You’re facing an extra tough time right now because computing has optimized the hiring process so much, it’s difficult to get your foot in the door, and geopolitics are complicating things.

You’ll need to keep in mind that 21 is still quite early in your life, and the world and pop culture really pushes an “instant success” mindset that sets all the wrong expectations.

You’ll need to do several things, unfortunately all at once. First, deeply understand personal finances. Understand that you need to “pay yourself first” (savings/investments) and then what’s left over is what you have to manage expenses and debts. If you keep yourself out of debt you’re better off. Bogleheads Wiki changed the way I viewed my money: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page

You’re going to have to continue school. You need an Associate’s at a minimum. Go to a public community or municipal college. With an AA from here, most states will grant you automatic admission to public state universities. Research this. Regardless of what your views are on the utility of college degrees, you have to play the game. A college degree is a clearing house to larger companies. Trade school, is another option.

You’re going to have to work, to finance your costs of living plus your education investments, unless you’ve got someone or some financial instruments which let you focus on school.

With respect to college specifically, you’ll get out of it what you put in. Many folks will say it’s a waste, that “they didn’t learn anything new” while they went through. Well, that just signals to me they phoned it in; maybe they got lucky and got a break on their job, too.

From there, you’ll have your personal finances on lock, and one or two degrees (AA and a BA, and maybe a certificate or two) and you’ll be much more competitive.

The real game changer after all this is networking. The saying goes: It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. The best jobs don’t get posted to corporate websites, or if they do, they’re posted for labor law compliance and they already have a candidate in mind. Become a master at socializing (≠ partying), hint: it’s mostly just listening to other people.

It takes time. Be patient. Stay focused. You’ll get there.

I graduated to it from OneNote because it was way smoother, and I could type LaTeX equations much faster than dealing with the WYSIWYG editor in OneNote when I was doing math-intensive courses at Uni. Being able to hyperlink notes was a huge power-up. Really as easy as imagining one’s own personal Wikipedia. Brilliant.

Did it work?

I don’t doubt they would be able to figure it out, but we must at least acknowledge it’s not plug-and-play. If one doesn’t know their way around, paper maps take some planning. The paper map won’t announce the next upcoming turn in 2 miles. It definitely takes some learning to use.

I was curious to see if someone has ever documented this experience and I was rewarded with this video: https://youtu.be/sr9hQ_tDLP0

*General Delivery in the US.

[Name]
GENERAL DELIVERY
[City, State ZIP]

Be certain the post office you select provides general delivery services.

I use this a lot.

https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-General-Delivery

There are valid arguments for knowing how to use a paper map. We’re fortunate that GPS was opened up to the world, and we’ve flourished for it, but one very bad solar storm and it’s possible we’ll be back to paper for regional and farther navigation.

And 10m Amateur Techs!