US Amateur Radio - Amateur Extra (Element 4, 2020-2024) Practice Test

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1. - E0A05

What is one of the potential hazards of operating in the amateur radio microwave bands?

Select	Answer
A	Microwaves are ionizing radiation
B	The high gain antennas commonly used can result in high exposure levels
C	Microwaves often travel long distances by ionospheric reflection
D	The extremely high frequency energy can damage the joints of antenna structures

2. - E1A14

Except in some parts of Alaska, what is the maximum power permitted on the 630 meter band?

Select	Answer
A	1 watt EIRP
B	100 watts PEP
C	5 watts EIRP
D	50 watts PEP

3. - E1B06

Which of the following additional rules apply if you are installing an amateur station antenna at a site at or near a public use airport?

Select	Answer
A	You may have to notify the Federal Aviation Administration and register it with the FCC as required by Part 17 of the FCC rules
B	You must submit engineering drawings to the FAA
C	You must file an Environmental Impact Statement with the EPA before construction begins
D	You must obtain a construction permit from the airport zoning authority

4. - E1C07

At what level below a signal's mean power level is its bandwidth determined according to FCC rules?

Select	Answer
A	6 dB
B	26 dB
C	23 dB
D	3 dB

5. - E1D05

What must be posted at the station location of a station being operated by telecommand on or within 50 km of the earth's surface?

Select	Answer
A	A label with the name, address, and telephone number of the control operator
B	A label with the name, address, and telephone number of the station licensee
C	A photocopy of the station license
D	All these choices are correct

6. - E1E10

What must the administering VEs do after the administration of a successful examination for an amateur operator license?

Select	Answer
A	They must collect and send the documents to the FCC according to instructions
B	They must collect and submit the documents to the coordinating VEC for grading
C	They must submit the application document to the coordinating VEC according to the coordinating VEC instructions
D	They must collect and send the documents to the NCVEC for grading

7. - E1F04

Which of the following geographic descriptions approximately describes "Line A"?

Select	Answer
A	A line roughly parallel to and east of the U.S. Pacific coastline
B	A line roughly parallel to and north of the border between the U.S. and Mexico
C	A line roughly parallel to and south of the border between the U.S. and Canada
D	A line roughly parallel to and west of the U.S. Atlantic coastline

8. - E2A05

What do the letters in a satellite's mode designator specify?

Select	Answer
A	The uplink and downlink frequency ranges
B	The location of the ground control station
C	Power limits for uplink and downlink transmissions
D	The polarization of uplink and downlink signals

9. - E2B10

What aspect of an analog slow-scan television signal encodes the brightness of the picture?

Select	Answer
A	Tone amplitude
B	Sync amplitude
C	Tone frequency
D	Sync frequency

10. - E2C09

What type of equipment is commonly used to implement an amateur radio mesh network?

Select	Answer
A	A wireless router running custom firmware
B	An optical cable connection between the USB ports of 2 separate computers
C	A 2 meter VHF transceiver with a 1200 baud modem
D	A 440 MHz transceiver with a 9600 baud modem

11. - E2D11

Which of the following data are used by the APRS network to communicate station location?

Select	Answer
A	Polar coordinates
B	Latitude and longitude
C	Radio direction finding spectrum analysis
D	Time and frequency

12. - E2E09

Which of the following HF digital modes uses variable-length coding for bandwidth efficiency?

Select	Answer
A	PACTOR
B	PSK31
C	MT63
D	RTTY

13. - E3A03

When scheduling EME contacts, which of these conditions will generally result in the least path loss?

Select	Answer
A	When the moon is at apogee
B	When the moon is full
C	When the MUF is above 30 MHz
D	When the moon is at perigee

14. - E3B04

What is meant by the terms "extraordinary" and "ordinary" waves?

Select	Answer
A	Refracted rays and reflected waves
B	Extraordinary waves describe rare long-skip propagation compared to ordinary waves, which travel shorter distances
C	Long-path and short-path waves
D	Independent waves created in the ionosphere that are elliptically polarized

15. - E3C04

What does the value of Bz (B sub Z) represent?

Select	Answer
A	Geomagnetic field stability
B	Direction and strength of the interplanetary magnetic field
C	Critical frequency for vertical transmissions
D	Duration of long-delayed echoes

16. - E4A08

Which of the following measures SWR?

Select	Answer
A	An antenna analyzer
B	A Q meter
C	A spectrum analyzer
D	An ohmmeter

17. - E4B03

Which S parameter is equivalent to forward gain?

Select	Answer
A	S22
B	S11
C	S12
D	S21

18. - E4C11

Why can an attenuator be used to reduce receiver overload on the lower frequency HF bands with little or no impact on signal-to-noise ratio?

Select	Answer
A	The attenuator has a low-pass filter to increase the strength of lower frequency signals
B	Atmospheric noise is generally greater than internally generated noise even after attenuation
C	Signals are attenuated separately from the noise
D	The attenuator has a noise filter to suppress interference

19. - E4D01

What is meant by the blocking dynamic range of a receiver?

Select	Answer
A	The minimum difference in dB between two signals which produce third-order intermodulation products greater than the noise floor
B	The difference in dB between the noise floor and the level of an incoming signal that will cause 1 dB of gain compression
C	The difference in dB between the noise floor and the third-order intercept point
D	The minimum difference in dB between the levels of two FM signals that will cause one signal to block the other

20. - E4E08

What current flows equally on all conductors of an unshielded multi-conductor cable?

Select	Answer
A	Return current
B	Reactive current only
C	Common-mode current
D	Differential-mode current

21. - E5A08

What is the phase relationship between the current through and the voltage across a series resonant circuit at resonance?

Select	Answer
A	The voltage and current are 180 degrees out of phase
B	The voltage leads the current by 90 degrees
C	The voltage and current are in phase
D	The current leads the voltage by 90 degrees

22. - E5B08

What is the phase angle between the voltage across and the current through a series RLC circuit if XC is 100 ohms, R is 100 ohms, and XL is 75 ohms?

Select	Answer
A	14 degrees with the voltage lagging the current
B	76 degrees with the voltage lagging the current
C	76 degrees with the voltage leading the current
D	14 degrees with the voltage leading the current

23. - E5C01

Which of the following represents capacitive reactance in rectangular notation?

Select	Answer
A	Omega
B	+jX
C	Delta
D	-jX

24. - E5D02

Why is it important to keep lead lengths short for components used in circuits for VHF and above?

Select	Answer
A	To maintain component lifetime
B	To avoid unwanted inductive reactance
C	All these choices are correct
D	To increase the thermal time constant

25. - E6A12

Why do many MOSFET devices have internally connected Zener diodes on the gates?

Select	Answer
A	To provide a voltage reference for the correct amount of reverse-bias gate voltage
B	To keep the gate voltage within specifications and prevent the device from overheating
C	To protect the substrate from excessive voltages
D	To reduce the chance of static damage to the gate

26. - E6B10

In Figure E6-2, what is the schematic symbol for a light-emitting diode?

Select	Answer
A	6
B	5
C	1
D	7

27. - E6C04

Which of the following is an advantage of BiCMOS logic?

Select	Answer
A	Its simplicity results in much less expensive devices than standard CMOS
B	All these choices are correct
C	It has the high input impedance of CMOS and the low output impedance of bipolar transistors
D	It is immune to electrostatic damage

28. - E6D13

What is the primary cause of inductor self-resonance?

Select	Answer
A	Inter-turn capacitance
B	Non-linear core hysteresis
C	Inductive kickback
D	The skin effect

29. - E6E05

Which of the following noise figure values is typical of a low-noise UHF preamplifier?

Select	Answer
A	44 dBm
B	-20 dBm
C	-10 dB
D	2 dB

30. - E6F10

What is the most common type of photovoltaic cell used for electrical power generation?

Select	Answer
A	Copper oxide
B	Selenium
C	Silicon
D	Cadmium Sulfide

31. - E7A04

How many flip-flops are required to divide a signal frequency by 4?

Select	Answer
A	8
B	1
C	4
D	2

32. - E7B15

What is one way to prevent thermal runaway in a bipolar transistor amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	Use a resistor in series with the emitter
B	Neutralization
C	All these choices are correct
D	Select transistors with high beta

33. - E7C07

Which describes a Pi-L-network used for matching a vacuum tube final amplifier to a 50-ohm unbalanced output?

Select	Answer
A	A network with only three discrete parts
B	A Pi-network with an additional series inductor on the output
C	A matching network in which all components are isolated from ground
D	A Phase Inverter Load network

34. - E7D11

What is the function of the pass transistor in a linear voltage regulator circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Maintains nearly constant output voltage over a wide range of load current
B	Permits a wide range of output voltage settings
C	Maintains nearly constant output impedance over a wide range of load current
D	Provides a stable input impedance over a wide range of source voltage

35. - E7E04

What is one way a single-sideband phone signal can be generated?

Select	Answer
A	By using a loop modulator followed by a mixer
B	By driving a product detector with a DSB signal
C	By using a reactance modulator followed by a mixer
D	By using a balanced modulator followed by a filter

36. - E7F07

What function is performed by a Fast Fourier Transform?

Select	Answer
A	Converting analog signals to digital form
B	Converting 8-bit data to 16-bit data
C	Converting digital signals to analog form
D	Converting digital signals from the time domain to the frequency domain

37. - E7G10

What absolute voltage gain can be expected from the circuit in Figure E7-3 when R1 is 1800 ohms and RF is 68 kilohms?

Select	Answer
A	1
B	76
C	0.03
D	38

38. - E7H04

How is positive feedback supplied in a Colpitts oscillator?

Select	Answer
A	Through link coupling
B	Through a neutralizing capacitor
C	Through a tapped coil
D	Through a capacitive divider

39. - E8A05

What of the following instruments would be the most accurate for measuring the RMS voltage of a complex waveform?

Select	Answer
A	A D'Arsonval meter
B	An absorption wave meter
C	A true-RMS calculating meter
D	A grid dip meter

40. - E8B04

What is the modulation index of an FM-phone signal having a maximum carrier deviation of plus or minus 6 kHz when modulated with a 2 kHz modulating frequency?

Select	Answer
A	1/3
B	6000
C	2000
D	3

41. - E8C11

What is the relationship between symbol rate and baud?

Select	Answer
A	Baud is twice the symbol rate
B	They are the same
C	Baud is only used for RTTY
D	Symbol rate is only used for packet-based modes

42. - E8D08

What parameter evaluates distortion of an AFSK signal caused by excessive input audio levels?

Select	Answer
A	Repeat Request Rate (RRR)
B	Baud rate
C	Signal-to-noise ratio
D	Intermodulation Distortion (IMD)

43. - E9A08

What is antenna bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	The frequency range over which an antenna satisfies a performance requirement
B	The angle between the half-power radiation points
C	Antenna length divided by the number of elements
D	The angle formed between two imaginary lines drawn through the element ends

44. - E9B11

What is a disadvantage of decreasing the number of wire segments in an antenna model below 10 segments per half-wavelength?

Select	Answer
A	The resulting design will favor radiation of harmonic energy
B	The computed feed point impedance may be incorrect
C	Ground conductivity will not be accurately modeled
D	The antenna will become mechanically unstable

45. - E9C08

What is a folded dipole antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A dipole one-quarter wavelength long
B	A dipole configured to provide forward gain
C	A half-wave dipole with an additional parallel wire connecting its two ends
D	A type of ground-plane antenna

46. - E9D03

Where should a high Q loading coil be placed to minimize losses in a shortened vertical antenna?

Select	Answer
A	As low as possible on the vertical radiator
B	At a voltage node
C	As close to the transmitter as possible
D	Near the center of the vertical radiator

47. - E9E06

Which of these feed line impedances would be suitable for constructing a quarter-wave Q-section for matching a 100-ohm loop to 50-ohm feed line?

Select	Answer
A	50 ohms
B	62 ohms
C	75 ohms
D	450 ohms

48. - E9F05

What is the approximate physical length of a solid polyethylene dielectric coaxial transmission line that is electrically 1/4 wavelength long at 14.1 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	3.5 meters
B	4.3 meters
C	10.6 meters
D	5.3 meters

49. - E9G11

How are the wavelength scales on a Smith chart calibrated?

Select	Answer
A	In fractions of antenna electrical wavelength
B	In fractions of antenna electrical frequency
C	In fractions of transmission line electrical frequency
D	In fractions of transmission line electrical wavelength

50. - E9H11

What feature of a cardioid pattern antenna makes it useful for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	High radiation angle
B	Broadband response
C	A very sharp peak
D	A very sharp single null

Figure E6-2

Figure E7-3