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

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1. - E0A08

What does SAR measure?

Select	Answer
A	The rate at which RF energy is absorbed by the body
B	Signal Amplification Rating
C	The rate of RF energy reflected from stationary terrain
D	Synthetic Aperture Ratio of the human body

2. - E1A02

When using a transceiver that displays the carrier frequency of phone signals, which of the following displayed frequencies represents the lowest frequency at which a properly adjusted LSB emission will be totally within the band?

Select	Answer
A	3 kHz above the lower band edge
B	The exact lower band edge
C	1 kHz above the lower band edge
D	300 Hz above the lower band edge

3. - E1B04

What must be done before placing an amateur station within an officially designated wilderness area or wildlife preserve, or an area listed in the National Register of Historic Places?

Select	Answer
A	A letter of intent must be filed with the Environmental Protection Agency
B	A proposal must be submitted to the National Park Service
C	A form FSD-15 must be submitted to the Department of the Interior
D	An Environmental Assessment must be submitted to the FCC

4. - E1C13

What notifications must be given before transmitting on the 630 meter or 2200 meter bands?

Select	Answer
A	A special endorsement must be requested from the FCC
B	Operators must inform the Utilities Technology Council (UTC) of their call sign and coordinates of the station
C	Operators must inform the FAA of their intent to operate, giving their call sign and distance to the nearest runway
D	An environmental impact statement must be filed with the Department of the Interior

5. - E1D08

Which VHF amateur bands have frequencies authorized for space stations?

Select	Answer
A	2 meters
B	2 meters and 1.25 meters
C	6 meters and 2 meters
D	6 meters, 2 meters, and 1.25 meters

6. - E1E06

Who is responsible for the proper conduct and necessary supervision during an amateur operator license examination session?

Select	Answer
A	The VEC coordinating the session
B	Each administering VE
C	The FCC
D	The VE session manager

7. - E1F09

Which of the following conditions apply when transmitting spread spectrum emissions?

Select	Answer
A	A station transmitting SS emission must not cause harmful interference to other stations employing other authorized emissions
B	The transmission must not be used to obscure the meaning of any communication
C	The transmitting station must be in an area regulated by the FCC or in a country that permits SS emissions
D	All these choices are correct

8. - E2A08

Why should effective radiated power to a satellite that uses a linear transponder be limited?

Select	Answer
A	To avoid reducing the downlink power to all other users
B	To prevent creating errors in the satellite telemetry
C	To avoid interfering with terrestrial QSOs
D	To prevent the satellite from emitting out-of-band signals

9. - E2B02

How many horizontal lines make up a fast-scan (NTSC) television frame?

Select	Answer
A	30
B	1080
C	525
D	60

10. - E2C10

Why might a DX station state that they are listening on another frequency?

Select	Answer
A	To separate the calling stations from the DX station
B	Because the DX station may be transmitting on a frequency that is prohibited to some responding stations
C	All these choices are correct
D	To improve operating efficiency by reducing interference

11. - E2D01

Which of the following digital modes is designed for meteor scatter communications?

Select	Answer
A	Hellschreiber
B	APRS
C	MSK144
D	WSPR

12. - E2E04

What is indicated when one of the ellipses in an FSK crossed-ellipse display suddenly disappears?

Select	Answer
A	The receiver has drifted 5 kHz from the desired receive frequency
B	Selective fading has occurred
C	One of the signal filters is saturated
D	The mark and space signal have been inverted

13. - E3A12

What is the cause of auroral activity?

Select	Answer
A	An extreme low-pressure area in the polar regions
B	Meteor showers concentrated in the extreme northern and southern latitudes
C	The interaction in the E layer of charged particles from the Sun with the Earth's magnetic field
D	The interaction in the F2 layer between the solar wind and the Van Allen belt

14. - E3B01

What is transequatorial propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Propagation between points at the same latitude
B	Propagation between two mid-latitude points at approximately the same distance north and south of the magnetic equator
C	Propagation between points located on the magnetic equator
D	Propagation between a point on the equator and its antipodal point

15. - E3C11

What does VOACAP software model?

Select	Answer
A	AC current and impedance
B	VHF radio propagation
C	AC voltage and impedance
D	HF propagation

16. - E4A07

Which of the following is an advantage of using an antenna analyzer compared to an SWR bridge to measure antenna SWR?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	Antenna analyzers automatically tune your antenna for resonance
C	Antenna analyzers do not need an external RF source
D	Antenna analyzers display a time-varying representation of the modulation envelope

17. - E4B03

Which S parameter is equivalent to forward gain?

Select	Answer
A	S12
B	S21
C	S11
D	S22

18. - E4C04

What is the noise figure of a receiver?

Select	Answer
A	The ratio of the noise bandwidth in hertz to the theoretical bandwidth of a resistive network
B	The ratio of thermal noise to atmospheric noise
C	The ratio of atmospheric noise to phase noise
D	The ratio in dB of the noise generated by the receiver to the theoretical minimum noise

19. - E4D01

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

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

20. - E4E11

What could cause local AM broadcast band signals to combine to generate spurious signals in the MF or HF bands?

Select	Answer
A	Nearby corroded metal joints are mixing and re-radiating the broadcast signals
B	Your station receiver IF amplifier stage is defective
C	You are receiving skywave signals from a distant station
D	One or more of the broadcast stations is transmitting an over-modulated signal

21. - E5A15

Which of the following increases Q for inductors and capacitors?

Select	Answer
A	Lower self-resonant frequency
B	Lower reactance
C	Lower losses
D	Higher self-resonant frequency

22. - E5B09

What is the relationship between the AC current through a capacitor and the voltage across a capacitor?

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

23. - E5C06

What does the impedance 50-j25 represent?

Select	Answer
A	25 ohms resistance in series with 50 ohms inductive reactance
B	50 ohms resistance in series with 25 ohms inductive reactance
C	50 ohms resistance in series with 25 ohms capacitive reactance
D	25 ohms resistance in series with 50 ohms capacitive reactance

24. - E5D10

How can the true power be determined in an AC circuit where the voltage and current are out of phase?

Select	Answer
A	By dividing the apparent power by the power factor
B	By dividing the reactive power by the power factor
C	By multiplying the reactive power by the power factor
D	By multiplying the apparent power by the power factor

25. - E6A03

Why does a PN-junction diode not conduct current when reverse biased?

Select	Answer
A	Holes in P-type material and electrons in the N-type material are separated by the applied voltage, widening the depletion region
B	Only P-type semiconductor material can conduct current
C	Excess holes in P-type material combine with the electrons in N-type material, converting the entire diode into an insulator
D	Only N-type semiconductor material can conduct current

26. - E6B09

What is a common use for point-contact diodes?

Select	Answer
A	As a high-voltage rectifier
B	As a constant current source
C	As an RF detector
D	As a constant voltage source

27. - E6C02

What happens when the level of a comparator's input signal crosses the threshold?

Select	Answer
A	The comparator enters latch-up
B	The comparator changes its output state
C	The IC input can be damaged
D	The feedback loop becomes unstable

28. - E6D08

What is one reason for using powdered-iron cores rather than ferrite cores in an inductor?

Select	Answer
A	Powdered-iron cores generally maintain their characteristics at higher currents
B	Powdered-iron cores use smaller diameter wire for the same inductance
C	Powdered-iron cores generally have greater initial permeability
D	Powdered-iron cores generally require fewer turns to produce a given inductance

29. - E6E07

What type of transmission line is used for connections to MMICs?

Select	Answer
A	Miniature coax
B	Microstrip
C	Parallel wire
D	Circular waveguide

30. - E6F06

Which of these materials is most commonly used to create photoconductive devices?

Select	Answer
A	An ordinary metal
B	A heavy metal
C	A liquid semiconductor
D	A crystalline semiconductor

31. - E7A07

What logical operation does a NAND gate perform?

Select	Answer
A	It produces logic 0 at its output only when all inputs are logic 1
B	It produces logic 0 at its output only when all inputs are logic 0
C	It produces logic 0 at its output if some but not all inputs are logic 1
D	It produces logic 1 at its output only when all inputs are logic 1

32. - E7B16

What is the effect of intermodulation products in a linear power amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	Transmission of spurious signals
B	All these choices are correct
C	Low efficiency
D	Creation of parasitic oscillations

33. - E7C10

Which of the following filters would be the best choice for use in a 2 meter band repeater duplexer?

Select	Answer
A	A crystal filter
B	An L-C filter
C	A cavity filter
D	A DSP filter

34. - E7D03

What device is typically used as a stable voltage reference in a linear voltage regulator?

Select	Answer
A	A varactor diode
B	An SCR
C	A tunnel diode
D	A Zener diode

35. - E7E06

Why is de-emphasis commonly used in FM communications receivers?

Select	Answer
A	For higher efficiency
B	To remove third-order distortion products
C	To reduce impulse noise reception
D	For compatibility with transmitters using phase modulation

36. - E7F12

Which of the following is an advantage of a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter vs an Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) digital filter?

Select	Answer
A	FIR filters can delay all frequency components of the signal by the same amount
B	All these choices are correct
C	FIR filters are easier to implement for a given set of passband rolloff requirements
D	FIR filters can respond faster to impulses

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	94
B	24
C	47
D	0.21

38. - E7H05

How is positive feedback supplied in a Pierce oscillator?

Select	Answer
A	Through link coupling
B	Through a neutralizing capacitor
C	Through a quartz crystal
D	Through a tapped coil

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

40. - E8B01

What is the modulation index of an FM signal?

Select	Answer
A	The bandwidth of the transmitted signal divided by the modulating signal frequency
B	The type of modulation used by the transmitter
C	The ratio of modulating signal amplitude to frequency deviation
D	The ratio of frequency deviation to modulating signal frequency

41. - E8C11

What is the relationship between symbol rate and baud?

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

42. - E8D05

What is the most common method of reducing key clicks?

Select	Answer
A	Increase keying waveform rise and fall times
B	Reduce keying waveform rise and fall times
C	High-pass filters at the transmitter output
D	Low-pass filters at the transmitter output

43. - E9A13

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

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

44. - E9B09

What type of computer program technique is commonly used for modeling antennas?

Select	Answer
A	Calculus differentiation with respect to physical properties
B	Graphical analysis
C	Mutual impedance analysis
D	Method of Moments

45. - E9C02

What is the radiation pattern of two 1/4-wavelength vertical antennas spaced 1/4 wavelength apart and fed 90 degrees out of phase?

Select	Answer
A	Omni-directional
B	Cardioid
C	A figure-8 end-fire along the axis of the array
D	A figure-8 broadside to the axis of the array

46. - E9D07

What is an advantage of using top loading in a shortened HF vertical antenna?

Select	Answer
A	Lower Q
B	Higher losses
C	Greater structural strength
D	Improved radiation efficiency

47. - E9E08

What is a use for a Wilkinson divider?

Select	Answer
A	It is used to feed high-impedance antennas from a low-impedance source
B	It is used to feed low-impedance loads from a high-impedance source
C	It divides the operating frequency of a transmitter signal so it can be used on a lower frequency band
D	It is used to divide power equally between two 50-ohm loads while maintaining 50-ohm input impedance

48. - E9F07

How does ladder line compare to small-diameter coaxial cable such as RG-58 at 50 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	Higher SWR
B	Lower loss
C	Smaller reflection coefficient
D	Lower velocity factor

49. - E9G01

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

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

50. - E9H11

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

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