US Amateur Radio - Amateur Extra (Element 4, 2016-2020) Practice Test

Logging in (or registering) will help the system to select questions that you need to focus on.

1. - E1A01

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

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

2. - E1B01

Which of the following constitutes a spurious emission?

Select	Answer
A	An amateur station transmission made at random without the proper call sign identification
B	An emission outside its necessary bandwidth that can be reduced or eliminated without affecting the information transmitted
C	A signal transmitted to prevent its detection by any station other than the intended recipient
D	Any transmitted signal that unintentionally interferes with another licensed radio station

3. - E1C04

What is meant by IARP?

Select	Answer
A	An indication of increased antenna reflected power
B	An international amateur radio permit that allows U.S. amateurs to operate in certain countries of the Americas
C	The internal amateur radio practices policy of the FCC
D	A forecast of intermittent aurora radio propagation

4. - E1D03

What is a telecommand station in the amateur satellite service?

Select	Answer
A	An amateur station that transmits communications to initiate, modify or terminate functions of a space station
B	An amateur station located on the Earth's surface for communication with other Earth stations by means of Earth satellites
C	An amateur station that transmits telemetry consisting of measurements of upper atmosphere
D	An amateur station located more than 50 km above the Earth's surface

5. - E1E01

What is the minimum number of qualified VEs required to administer an Element 4 amateur operator license examination?

Select	Answer
A	4
B	2
C	5
D	3

6. - E1F04

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

Select	Answer
A	A line roughly parallel to and north of the U.S.-Mexican border and Gulf coastline
B	A line roughly parallel to and west of the U.S. Atlantic coastline
C	A line roughly parallel to and east of the U.S. Pacific coastline
D	A line roughly parallel to and south of the U.S.-Canadian border

7. - E2A09

What do the terms L band and S band specify with regard to satellite communications?

Select	Answer
A	FM and Digital Store-and-Forward systems
B	The 23 centimeter and 13 centimeter bands
C	The 2 meter and 70 centimeter bands
D	Which sideband to use

8. - E2B16

Which is a video standard used by North American Fast Scan ATV stations?

Select	Answer
A	PAL
B	Scottie
C	DRM
D	NTSC

9. - E2C02

Which of the following best describes the term self-spotting in regards to HF contest operating?

Select	Answer
A	A manual technique for rapidly zero beating or tuning to a station's frequency before calling that station
B	An automatic method for rapidly zero beating or tuning to a station's frequency before calling that station
C	The generally prohibited practice of posting one's own call sign and frequency on a spotting network
D	The acceptable practice of manually posting the call signs of stations on a spotting network

10. - E2D05

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	Multi-satellite relaying
C	Digipeating
D	Node hopping

11. - E2E12

Which type of control is used by stations using the Automatic Link Enable (ALE) protocol?

Select	Answer
A	Local
B	Remote
C	Automatic
D	ALE can use any type of control

12. - E3A05

Tropospheric propagation of microwave signals often occurs along what weather related structure?

Select	Answer
A	Sprites and jets
B	Gray-line
C	Warm and cold fronts
D	Lightning discharges

13. - E3B05

Which amateur bands typically support long-path propagation?

Select	Answer
A	30 meters to 10 meters
B	160 meters to 10 meters
C	6 meters to 2 meters
D	160 meters to 40 meters

14. - E3C04

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

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

15. - E4A12

Which of the following procedures is an important precaution to follow when connecting a spectrum analyzer to a transmitter output?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	Use high quality double shielded coaxial cables to reduce signal losses
C	Match the antenna to the load
D	Attenuate the transmitter output going to the spectrum analyzer

16. - 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	75 watts
B	25 watts
C	125 watts
D	100 watts

17. - E4C04

How is the noise figure of a receiver defined?

Select	Answer
A	The ratio of thermal noise to atmospheric noise
B	The ratio of the noise bandwidth in Hertz to the theoretical bandwidth of a resistive network
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

18. - E4D05

What transmitter frequencies would cause an intermodulation-product signal in a receiver tuned to 146.70 MHz when a nearby station transmits on 146.52 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	146.34 MHz and 146.61 MHz
B	146.88 MHz and 146.34 MHz
C	146.10 MHz and 147.30 MHz
D	173.35 MHz and 139.40 MHz

19. - E4E03

Which of the following signals might a receiver noise blanker be able to remove from desired signals?

Select	Answer
A	Signals which are constant at all IF levels
B	Signals which appear across a wide bandwidth
C	Signals which appear at one IF but not another
D	Signals which have a sharply peaked frequency distribution

20. - E5A03

What is the magnitude of the impedance of a series RLC circuit at resonance?

Select	Answer
A	High, as compared to the circuit resistance
B	Approximately equal to inductive reactance
C	Approximately equal to circuit resistance
D	Approximately equal to capacitive reactance

21. - 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	14 degrees with the voltage leading the current
B	76 degrees with the voltage lagging the current
C	14 degrees with the voltage lagging the current
D	76 degrees with the voltage leading the current

22. - E5C17

Which point on Figure E5-2 best represents the impedance of a series circuit consisting of a 300 ohm resistor, a 0.64-microhenry inductor and an 85-picofarad capacitor at 24.900 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	Point 3
B	Point 5
C	Point 8
D	Point 1

23. - E5D03

What is microstrip?

Select	Answer
A	Miniature coax used for low power applications
B	Lightweight transmission line made of common zip cord
C	Precision printed circuit conductors above a ground plane that provide constant impedance interconnects at microwave frequencies
D	Short lengths of coax mounted on printed circuit boards to minimize time delay between microwave circuits

24. - E6A07

Which of the following indicates that a silicon NPN junction transistor is biased on?

Select	Answer
A	Base-to-emitter voltage of approximately 6 to 7 volts
B	Base-to-emitter resistance of approximately 0.6 to 0.7 ohms
C	Base-to-emitter resistance of approximately 6 to 7 ohms
D	Base-to-emitter voltage of approximately 0.6 to 0.7 volts

25. - E6B10

In Figure E6-3, what is the schematic symbol for a light-emitting diode?

Select	Answer
A	6
B	5
C	1
D	7

26. - E6C14

What is the primary advantage of using a Programmable Gate Array (PGA) in a logic circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Complex logic functions can be created in a single integrated circuit
B	All of these choices are correct
C	A PGA contains its own internal power supply
D	Many similar gates are less expensive than a mixture of gate types

27. - E6D02

What is the equivalent circuit of a quartz crystal?

Select	Answer
A	Motional capacitance, motional inductance, loss resistance, and a capacitor representing electrode and stray capacitance all in parallel
B	Motional capacitance, motional inductance, and loss resistance in series, all in parallel with a shunt capacitor representing electrode and stray capacitance
C	Motional capacitance, motional inductance, loss resistance, and a capacitor representing electrode and stray capacitance all in series
D	Motional inductance and loss resistance in series, paralleled with motional capacitance and a capacitor representing electrode and stray capacitance

28. - E6E04

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

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

29. - E6F04

What is the photovoltaic effect?

Select	Answer
A	The conversion of light to electrical energy
B	The tendency of a battery to discharge when used outside
C	The conversion of electrical energy to mechanical energy
D	The conversion of voltage to current when exposed to light

30. - 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 "1" at its output only when all inputs are logic "1"
C	It produces logic "0" at its output if some but not all inputs are logic "1"
D	It produces logic "0" at its output only when all inputs are logic "0"

31. - E7B15

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

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

32. - E7C06

What are the distinguishing features of an elliptical filter?

Select	Answer
A	Gradual passband rolloff with extreme stop band ripple
B	Extremely flat response over its pass band with gradually rounded stop band corners
C	Gradual passband rolloff with minimal stop band ripple
D	Extremely sharp cutoff with one or more notches in the stop band

33. - E7D11

What circuit element is controlled by a series analog voltage regulator to maintain a constant output voltage?

Select	Answer
A	Switching inductance
B	Reference voltage
C	Error amplifier
D	Pass transistor

34. - E7E07

What is meant by the term baseband in radio communications?

Select	Answer
A	The frequency components present in the modulating signal
B	The lowest frequency band that the transmitter or receiver covers
C	The unmodulated bandwidth of the transmitted signal
D	The basic oscillator frequency in an FM transmitter that is multiplied to increase the deviation and carrier frequency

35. - E7F01

What is meant by direct digital conversion as applied to software defined radios?

Select	Answer
A	Software is converted from source code to object code during operation of the receiver
B	A switching mixer is used to generate I and Q signals directly from the RF input
C	Incoming RF is converted to a control voltage for a voltage controlled oscillator
D	Incoming RF is digitized by an analog-to-digital converter without being mixed with a local oscillator signal

36. - E7G01

What is the typical output impedance of an integrated circuit op-amp?

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

37. - E7H09

What type of frequency synthesizer circuit uses a phase accumulator, lookup table, digital to analog converter, and a low-pass anti-alias filter?

Select	Answer
A	A hybrid synthesizer
B	A diode-switching matrix synthesizer
C	A direct digital synthesizer
D	A phase locked loop synthesizer

38. - E8A11

What type of information can be conveyed using digital waveforms?

Select	Answer
A	Video signals
B	Data
C	All of these choices are correct
D	Human speech

39. - E8B07

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

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

40. - E8C04

What technique is used to minimize the bandwidth requirements of a PSK31 signal?

Select	Answer
A	Use of trapezoidal data pulses
B	Use of sinusoidal data pulses
C	Zero-sum character encoding
D	Reed-Solomon character encoding

41. - E8D06

Which of the following indicates likely overmodulation of an AFSK signal such as PSK or MFSK?

Select	Answer
A	Strong ALC action
B	Rapid signal fading
C	Harmonics on higher bands
D	High reflected power

42. - E9A05

What is included in the total resistance of an antenna system?

Select	Answer
A	Radiation resistance plus transmission resistance
B	Radiation resistance plus space impedance
C	Radiation resistance plus ohmic resistance
D	Transmission-line resistance plus radiation resistance

43. - E9B16

How many elevation lobes appear in the forward direction of the antenna radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-2?

Select	Answer
A	4
B	3
C	7
D	1

44. - E9C07

What is the approximate feed point impedance at the center of a two-wire folded dipole antenna?

Select	Answer
A	450 ohms
B	72 ohms
C	50 ohms
D	300 ohms

45. - E9D11

Which of the following types of conductors would be best for minimizing losses in a station's RF ground system?

Select	Answer
A	A cable with six or seven 18 gauge conductors in parallel
B	A single 12 gauge or 10 gauge stainless steel wire
C	A wide flat copper strap
D	A resistive wire, such as spark plug wire

46. - E9E11

What is an effective way of matching a feed line to a VHF or UHF antenna when the impedances of both the antenna and feed line are unknown?

Select	Answer
A	Use the universal stub matching technique
B	Connect a series-resonant LC network across the antenna feed terminals
C	Connect a parallel-resonant LC network across the antenna feed terminals
D	Use a 50 ohm 1:1 balun between the antenna and feed line

47. - E9F03

Why is the physical length of a coaxial cable transmission line shorter than its electrical length?

Select	Answer
A	Electrical signals move more slowly in a coaxial cable than in air
B	The characteristic impedance is higher in a parallel feed line
C	The surge impedance is higher in a parallel feed line
D	Skin effect is less pronounced in the coaxial cable

48. - E9G05

What type of chart is shown in Figure E9-3?

Select	Answer
A	Elevation angle radiation pattern chart
B	Free space radiation directivity chart
C	Azimuth angle radiation pattern chart
D	Smith chart

49. - E9H09

Which of the following describes the construction of a receiving loop antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A small coil of wire tightly wound around a toroidal ferrite core
B	A large circularly polarized antenna
C	A vertical antenna coupled to a feed line through an inductive loop of wire
D	One or more turns of wire wound in the shape of a large open coil

50. - E0A08

What does SAR measure?

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

Figure E5-2

Figure E6-3

Figure E9-2

Figure E9-3