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

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1. - E0A03

Over what range of frequencies are the FCC human body RF exposure limits most restrictive?

Select	Answer
A	30 to 300 MHz
B	300 to 3000 MHz
C	300 kHz to 3 MHz
D	3 to 30 MHz

2. - E1A04

With your transceiver displaying the carrier frequency of phone signals, you hear a DX station calling CQ on 3.601 MHz LSB. Is it legal to return the call using lower sideband on the same frequency?

Select	Answer
A	No, U.S. stations are not permitted to use phone emissions below 3.610 MHz
B	Yes, because the DX station initiated the contact
C	No, the sideband will extend beyond the edge of the phone band segment
D	Yes, because the displayed frequency is within the 75 meter phone band segment

3. - E1B05

What is the National Radio Quiet Zone?

Select	Answer
A	An area surrounding the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
B	An area in New Mexico surrounding the White Sands Test Area
C	An area in Florida surrounding Cape Canaveral
D	An area in Puerto Rico surrounding the Arecibo Radio Telescope

4. - E1C08

What is the maximum permissible duration of a remotely controlled station's transmissions if its control link malfunctions?

Select	Answer
A	3 minutes
B	30 seconds
C	10 minutes
D	5 minutes

5. - E1D09

Which UHF amateur bands have frequencies authorized for space stations?

Select	Answer
A	70 cm and 13 cm
B	70 cm and 33 cm
C	33 cm and 13 cm
D	70 cm only

6. - E1E09

What may be the penalty for a VE who fraudulently administers or certifies an examination?

Select	Answer
A	Revocation of the VE's amateur station license grant and the suspension of the VE's amateur operator license grant
B	A sentence of up to one year in prison
C	All these choices are correct
D	A fine of up to $1000 per occurrence

7. - E1F04

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

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

8. - E2A02

Which of the following occurs when a satellite is using an inverting linear transponder?

Select	Answer
A	Signal position in the band is reversed
B	Upper sideband on the uplink becomes lower sideband on the downlink, and vice versa
C	Doppler shift is reduced because the uplink and downlink shifts are in opposite directions
D	All these choices are correct

9. - E2B10

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

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

10. - E2C03

From which of the following bands is amateur radio contesting generally excluded?

Select	Answer
A	33 centimeters
B	6 meters
C	2 meters
D	30 meters

11. - E2D02

Which of the following is a good technique for making meteor scatter contacts?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	Use of special digital modes
C	15-second timed transmission sequences with stations alternating based on location
D	Short transmissions with rapidly repeated call signs and signal reports

12. - E2E05

Which of these digital modes does not support keyboard-to-keyboard operation?

Select	Answer
A	RTTY
B	PSK31
C	MFSK
D	PACTOR

13. - E3A07

Atmospheric ducts capable of propagating microwave signals often form over what geographic feature?

Select	Answer
A	Bodies of water
B	Forests
C	Urban areas
D	Mountain ranges

14. - E3B12

What is the primary characteristic of chordal hop propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Signals reflected back toward the transmitting station
B	Successive ionospheric refractions without an intermediate reflection from the ground
C	Propagation across the geomagnetic equator
D	Propagation away from the great circle bearing between stations

15. - E3C06

By how much does the VHF/UHF radio horizon distance exceed the geometric horizon?

Select	Answer
A	By approximately four times the distance
B	By approximately twice the distance
C	By approximately 15 percent of the distance
D	By approximately 50 percent of the distance

16. - E4A10

Which of the following displays multiple digital signal states simultaneously?

Select	Answer
A	Bit error rate tester
B	Network analyzer
C	Modulation monitor
D	Logic analyzer

17. - E4B01

Which of the following factors most affects the accuracy of a frequency counter?

Select	Answer
A	Temperature coefficient of the logic
B	Input attenuator accuracy
C	Time base accuracy
D	Decade divider accuracy

18. - E4C13

How does a narrow-band roofing filter affect receiver performance?

Select	Answer
A	It improves sensitivity by reducing front end noise
B	All these choices are correct
C	It improves dynamic range by attenuating strong signals near the receive frequency
D	It improves intelligibility by using low Q circuitry to reduce ringing

19. - E4D10

What does a third-order intercept level of 40 dBm mean with respect to receiver performance?

Select	Answer
A	The receiver can tolerate signals up to 40 dB above the noise floor without producing third-order intermodulation products
B	A pair of 1 mW input signals will produce a third-order intermodulation product that is 40 dB stronger than the input signal
C	A pair of 40 dBm input signals will theoretically generate a third-order intermodulation product that has the same output amplitude as either of the input signals
D	Signals less than 40 dBm will not generate audible third-order intermodulation products

20. - E4E09

What undesirable effect can occur when using an IF noise blanker?

Select	Answer
A	FM signals can no longer be demodulated
B	Nearby signals may appear to be excessively wide even if they meet emission standards
C	The audio frequency bandwidth of the received signal might be compressed
D	Received audio in the speech range might have an echo effect

21. - E5A09

How is the Q of an RLC parallel resonant circuit calculated?

Select	Answer
A	Reactance of the inductance multiplied by the reactance of the capacitance
B	Reactance of either the inductance or capacitance divided by the resistance
C	Reactance of either the inductance or capacitance multiplied by the resistance
D	Resistance divided by the reactance of either the inductance or capacitance

22. - E5B11

What is the phase angle between the voltage across and the current through a series RLC circuit if XC is 25 ohms, R is 100 ohms, and XL is 50 ohms?

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

23. - E5C02

How are impedances described in polar coordinates?

Select	Answer
A	By phase angle and magnitude
B	By X and R values
C	By real and imaginary parts
D	By Y and G values

24. - E5D04

Why are short connections used at microwave frequencies?

Select	Answer
A	To reduce phase shift along the connection
B	To reduce noise figure
C	To increase neutralizing resistance
D	To increase compensating capacitance

25. - E6A06

What is the beta of a bipolar junction transistor?

Select	Answer
A	The breakdown voltage of the base to collector junction
B	The change in collector current with respect to base current
C	The frequency at which the current gain is reduced to 0.707
D	The switching speed

26. - E6B11

What is used to control the attenuation of RF signals by a PIN diode?

Select	Answer
A	Capacitance of an RF coupling capacitor
B	Forward DC bias current
C	A sub-harmonic pump signal
D	Reverse voltage larger than the RF signal

27. - E6C09

What is a Programmable Logic Device (PLD)?

Select	Answer
A	Programmable equipment used for testing digital logic integrated circuits
B	A type of transistor whose gain can be changed by digital logic circuits
C	A logic circuit that can be modified during use
D	A programmable collection of logic gates and circuits in a single integrated circuit

28. - E6D06

What core material property determines the inductance of an inductor?

Select	Answer
A	Resistance
B	Thermal impedance
C	Reactivity
D	Permeability

29. - E6E04

Which is the most common input and output impedance of circuits that use MMICs?

Select	Answer
A	300 ohms
B	50 ohms
C	10 ohms
D	450 ohms

30. - E6F09

What is the efficiency of a photovoltaic cell?

Select	Answer
A	The relative fraction of light that is converted to current
B	The open-circuit voltage divided by the short-circuit current under full illumination
C	The output RF power divided by the input DC power
D	Cost per kilowatt-hour generated

31. - E7A03

Which of the following can divide the frequency of a pulse train by 2?

Select	Answer
A	A flip-flop
B	A multiplexer
C	An XOR gate
D	An OR gate

32. - E7B01

For what portion of the signal cycle does each active element in a push-pull Class AB amplifier conduct?

Select	Answer
A	Exactly 180 degrees
B	More than 180 degrees but less than 360 degrees
C	Less than 180 degrees
D	The entire cycle

33. - E7C05

Which filter type is described as having ripple in the passband and a sharp cutoff?

Select	Answer
A	A Butterworth filter
B	A Chebyshev filter
C	A passive op-amp filter
D	An active LC filter

34. - E7D13

What is the equation for calculating power dissipated by a series linear voltage regulator?

Select	Answer
A	Input voltage divided by output current
B	Output voltage multiplied by output current
C	Input voltage multiplied by input current
D	Voltage difference from input to output multiplied by output current

35. - E7E03

What is a frequency discriminator stage in a FM receiver?

Select	Answer
A	An automatic band-switching circuit
B	An FM generator circuit
C	A circuit for filtering two closely adjacent signals
D	A circuit for detecting FM signals

36. - E7F14

Which of the following would allow a digital signal processing filter to create a sharper filter response?

Select	Answer
A	Double-precision math routines
B	More taps
C	Higher data rate
D	Complex phasor representations

37. - E7G07

What magnitude of voltage gain can be expected from the circuit in Figure E73 when R1 is 10 ohms and RF is 470 ohms?

Select	Answer
A	24
B	47
C	0.21
D	94

38. - E7H15

Which of these functions can be performed by a phase-locked loop?

Select	Answer
A	Photovoltaic conversion, optical coupling
B	Wide-band AF and RF power amplification
C	Frequency synthesis, FM demodulation
D	Comparison of two digital input signals, digital pulse counter

39. - E8A07

What determines the PEP-to-average power ratio of a single-sideband phone signal?

Select	Answer
A	Amplifier gain
B	The frequency of the modulating signal
C	The degree of carrier suppression
D	Speech characteristics

40. - E8B07

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing is a technique used for which type of amateur communication?

Select	Answer
A	EME
B	High-speed digital modes
C	Extremely low-power contacts
D	OFDM signals are not allowed on amateur bands

41. - E8C11

What is the relationship between symbol rate and baud?

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

42. - E8D06

What is the advantage of including parity bits in ASCII characters?

Select	Answer
A	Some types of errors can be detected
B	Faster transmission rate
C	The signal can overpower interfering signals
D	Foreign language characters can be sent

43. - E9A13

What term describes station output, taking into account all gains and losses?

Select	Answer
A	Half-power bandwidth
B	Apparent power
C	Power factor
D	Effective radiated power

44. - E9B01

In the antenna radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-1, what is the beamwidth?

Select	Answer
A	50 degrees
B	30 degrees
C	25 degrees
D	75 degrees

45. - E9C12

Which of the following describes an Extended Double Zepp antenna?

Select	Answer
A	An end-fed folded dipole antenna
B	A wideband vertical antenna constructed from precisely tapered aluminum tubing
C	A portable antenna erected using two push support poles
D	A center-fed 1.25-wavelength antenna (two 5/8-wave elements in phase)

46. - E9D05

What usually occurs if a Yagi antenna is designed solely for maximum forward gain?

Select	Answer
A	The SWR is reduced
B	The front-to-back ratio decreases
C	The front-to-back ratio increases
D	The frequency response is widened over the whole frequency band

47. - E9E10

Which of these choices is an effective way to match an antenna with a 100-ohm feed point impedance to a 50-ohm coaxial cable feed line?

Select	Answer
A	Insert a 1/2 wavelength piece of 300-ohm twinlead in series between the antenna terminals and the 50-ohm feed cable
B	Insert a 1/4-wavelength piece of 75-ohm coaxial cable transmission line in series between the antenna terminals and the 50-ohm feed cable
C	Connect a 1/2 wavelength shorted stub of 75-ohm cable in parallel with the 50-ohm cable where it attaches to the antenna
D	Connect a 1/4-wavelength open stub of 300-ohm twinlead in parallel with the coaxial feed line where it connects to the antenna

48. - E9F04

What impedance does a 1/2-wavelength transmission line present to a generator when the line is shorted at the far end?

Select	Answer
A	Very low impedance
B	Very high impedance
C	The same as the characteristic impedance of the line
D	The same as the output impedance of the generator

49. - E9G01

Which of the following can be calculated using a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Radio propagation
B	Antenna radiation pattern
C	Impedance along transmission lines
D	Radiation resistance

50. - E9H03

What is Receiving Directivity Factor (RDF)?

Select	Answer
A	Relative directivity compared to isotropic
B	Forward gain compared to average gain over the entire hemisphere
C	Relative directivity compared to a dipole
D	Forward gain compared to the gain in the reverse direction

Figure E9-1