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	Synthetic Aperture Ratio of the human body
C	The rate of RF energy reflected from stationary terrain
D	Signal Amplification Rating

2. - E1A14

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

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

3. - E1B12

What must the control operator of a repeater operating in the 70 cm band do if a radiolocation system experiences interference from that repeater?

Select	Answer
A	File an FAA NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) with the repeater system's ERP, call sign, and six-character grid locator
B	Cease operation or make changes to the repeater to mitigate the interference
C	Reduce the repeater antenna HAAT (Height Above Average Terrain)
D	All these choices are correct

4. - E1C13

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

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

5. - E1D11

Which amateur stations are eligible to operate as Earth stations?

Select	Answer
A	Any amateur station, subject to the privileges of the class of operator license held by the control operator
B	Only those of Amateur Extra Class operators
C	Only those of General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators
D	Any amateur station whose licensee has filed a pre-space notification with the FCC's International Bureau

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

7. - E1F10

Who may be the control operator of an auxiliary station?

Select	Answer
A	Only Technician, General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators
B	Only General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators
C	Any licensed amateur operator
D	Only Amateur Extra Class operators

8. - E2A13

Which of the following techniques is normally used by low Earth orbiting digital satellites to relay messages around the world?

Select	Answer
A	Store-and-forward
B	Digipeating
C	Node hopping
D	Multi-satellite relaying

9. - E2B02

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

Select	Answer
A	60
B	525
C	30
D	1080

10. - E2C12

What technique do individual nodes use to form a mesh network?

Select	Answer
A	Custom code plugs for the local trunking systems
B	Forward error correction and Viterbi codes
C	Discovery and link establishment protocols
D	Acting as store-and-forward digipeaters

11. - E2D11

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

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

12. - E2E05

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

Select	Answer
A	PACTOR
B	MFSK
C	RTTY
D	PSK31

13. - E3A05

Tropospheric propagation of microwave signals often occurs in association with what phenomenon?

Select	Answer
A	Sprites and jets
B	Warm and cold fronts
C	Grayline
D	Lightning discharges

14. - E3B03

What is the best time of day for transequatorial propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Morning
B	Afternoon or early evening
C	Late at night
D	Noon

15. - E3C05

What orientation of Bz (B sub z) increases the likelihood that incoming particles from the sun will cause disturbed conditions?

Select	Answer
A	Northward
B	Southward
C	Westward
D	Eastward

16. - E4A02

Which of the following parameters does a spectrum analyzer display on the vertical and horizontal axes?

Select	Answer
A	RF amplitude and time
B	RF amplitude and frequency
C	SWR and time
D	SWR and frequency

17. - E4B06

How much power is being absorbed by the load when a directional power meter connected between a transmitter and a terminating load reads 100 watts forward power and 25 watts reflected power?

Select	Answer
A	100 watts
B	25 watts
C	75 watts
D	125 watts

18. - E4C01

What is an effect of excessive phase noise in a receiver's local oscillator?

Select	Answer
A	It can affect the receiver's frequency calibration
B	It limits the receiver's ability to receive strong signals
C	It can combine with strong signals on nearby frequencies to generate interference
D	It decreases receiver third-order intercept point

19. - E4D09

What is the purpose of the preselector in a communications receiver?

Select	Answer
A	To increase rejection of signals outside the desired band
B	To allow selection of the optimum RF amplifier device
C	To store often-used frequencies
D	To provide a range of AGC time constants

20. - E4E04

How can conducted and radiated noise caused by an automobile alternator be suppressed?

Select	Answer
A	By installing a noise suppression resistor and a blocking capacitor in both leads
B	By installing a high-pass filter in series with the radio's power lead and a low-pass filter in parallel with the field lead
C	By connecting the radio's power leads directly to the battery and by installing coaxial capacitors in line with the alternator leads
D	By installing filter capacitors in series with the DC power lead and a blocking capacitor in the field lead

21. - E5A06

What is the magnitude of the circulating current within the components of a parallel LC circuit at resonance?

Select	Answer
A	It equals 1 divided by the quantity 2 times pi, multiplied by the square root of inductance L multiplied by capacitance C
B	It equals 2 multiplied by pi, multiplied by frequency, multiplied by inductance
C	It is at a minimum
D	It is at a maximum

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

23. - E5C09

When using rectangular coordinates to graph the impedance of a circuit, what do the axes represent?

Select	Answer
A	The X axis represents the magnitude and the Y axis represents the phase angle
B	The X axis represents the resistive component and the Y axis represents the reactive component
C	The X axis represents the reactive component and the Y axis represents the resistive component
D	The X axis represents the phase angle and the Y axis represents the magnitude

24. - E5D02

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

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

25. - E6A02

Which of the following semiconductor materials contains excess free electrons?

Select	Answer
A	Insulated gate
B	Bipolar
C	P-type
D	N-type

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	Reverse voltage larger than the RF signal
D	A sub-harmonic pump signal

27. - E6C01

What is the function of hysteresis in a comparator?

Select	Answer
A	To allow the comparator to be used with AC input signals
B	To prevent input noise from causing unstable output signals
C	To increase the sensitivity
D	To cause the output to change states continually

28. - E6D11

Which type of core material decreases inductance when inserted into a coil?

Select	Answer
A	Ceramic
B	Powdered iron
C	Brass
D	Ferrite

29. - E6E06

What characteristics of the MMIC make it a popular choice for VHF through microwave circuits?

Select	Answer
A	Plate current that is controlled by a control grid
B	The ability to retrieve information from a single signal even in the presence of other strong signals
C	Nearly infinite gain, very high input impedance, and very low output impedance
D	Controlled gain, low noise figure, and constant input and output impedance over the specified frequency range

30. - E6F07

What is a solid-state relay?

Select	Answer
A	A mechanical relay that latches in the on or off state each time it is pulsed
B	A relay using transistors to drive the relay coil
C	A device that uses semiconductors to implement the functions of an electromechanical relay
D	A semiconductor passive delay line

31. - E7A03

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

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

32. - E7B06

Which of the following amplifier types reduces even-order harmonics?

Select	Answer
A	Push-pull
B	Class AB
C	Class C
D	Push-push

33. - E7C11

Which of the following describes a receiving filter's ability to reject signals occupying an adjacent channel?

Select	Answer
A	Phase response
B	Noise factor
C	Shape factor
D	Passband ripple

34. - E7D06

What is the purpose of Q1 in the circuit shown in Figure E7-2?

Select	Answer
A	It provides a constant load for the voltage source
B	It provides D1 with current
C	It controls the current supplied to the load
D	It provides negative feedback to improve regulation

35. - E7E02

What is the function of a reactance modulator?

Select	Answer
A	To produce PM signals by using an electrically variable resistance
B	To produce AM signals by using an electrically variable inductance or capacitance
C	To produce AM signals by using an electrically variable resistance
D	To produce PM or FM signals by using an electrically variable inductance or capacitance

36. - E7F13

What is the function of taps in a digital signal processing filter?

Select	Answer
A	To reduce excess signal pressure levels
B	Provide incremental signal delays for filter algorithms
C	Select the point at which baseband signals are generated
D	Provide access for debugging software

37. - E7G03

What is the typical input impedance of an op-amp?

Select	Answer
A	Very high
B	1000 ohms
C	Very low
D	100 ohms

38. - E7H11

What are the major spectral impurity components of direct digital synthesizers?

Select	Answer
A	Broadband noise
B	Digital conversion noise
C	Spurious signals at discrete frequencies
D	Nyquist limit noise

39. - E8A03

What type of wave does a Fourier analysis show to be made up of sine waves of a given fundamental frequency plus all its harmonics?

Select	Answer
A	A cosine wave
B	A sawtooth wave
C	A sine wave
D	A square wave

40. - E8B10

What is frequency division multiplexing?

Select	Answer
A	The transmitted signal jumps from band to band at a predetermined rate
B	Two or more information streams are merged into a digital combiner, which then pulse position modulates the transmitter
C	Two or more information streams are merged into a baseband, which then modulates the transmitter
D	The transmitted signal is divided into packets of information

41. - E8C05

What is the approximate bandwidth of a 13-WPM International Morse Code transmission?

Select	Answer
A	104 Hz
B	13 Hz
C	52 Hz
D	26 Hz

42. - E8D10

What are some of the differences between the Baudot digital code and ASCII?

Select	Answer
A	Baudot uses 5 data bits per character, ASCII uses 7 or 8; Baudot uses 2 characters as letters/figures shift codes, ASCII has no letters/figures shift code
B	Baudot uses 4 data bits per character, ASCII uses 7 or 8; Baudot uses 1 character as a letters/figures shift code, ASCII has no letters/figures code
C	Baudot uses 6 data bits per character, ASCII uses 7 or 8; Baudot has no letters/figures shift code, ASCII uses 2 letters/figures shift codes
D	Baudot uses 7 data bits per character, ASCII uses 8; Baudot has no letters/figures shift code, ASCII uses 2 letters/figures shift codes

43. - E9A11

Which of the following factors determines ground losses for a ground-mounted vertical antenna operating in the 3 MHz to 30 MHz range?

Select	Answer
A	Take-off angle
B	Soil conductivity
C	Distance from the transmitter
D	The standing wave ratio

44. - E9B06

What is the elevation angle of peak response in the antenna radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-2?

Select	Answer
A	75 degrees
B	7.5 degrees
C	45 degrees
D	25 degrees

45. - E9C03

What is the radiation pattern of two 1/4-wavelength vertical antennas spaced 1/2-wavelength apart and fed in phase?

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

46. - E9D08

What happens as the Q of an antenna increases?

Select	Answer
A	SWR bandwidth decreases
B	Gain is reduced
C	SWR bandwidth increases
D	More common-mode current is present on the feed line

47. - E9E09

Which of the following is used to shunt-feed a grounded tower at its base?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	Hairpin match
C	Double-bazooka match
D	Gamma match

48. - E9F13

What impedance does a 1/4-wavelength transmission line present to a generator when the line is shorted at the far end?

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

49. - E9G03

Which of the following is often determined using a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Satellite azimuth and elevation bearings
B	Trigonometric functions
C	Impedance and SWR values in transmission lines
D	Beam headings and radiation patterns

50. - E9H05

What is the main drawback of a small wire-loop antenna for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	It has a bidirectional pattern
B	All these choices are correct
C	It has no clearly defined null
D	It is practical for use only on VHF and higher bands

Figure E7-2

Figure E9-2