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

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1. - E1A11

Which of the following describes authorization or licensing required when operating an amateur station aboard a U.S.-registered vessel in international waters?

Select	Answer
A	An unrestricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit
B	Only General class or higher amateur licenses
C	Any amateur license with an FCC Marine or Aircraft endorsement
D	Any FCC-issued amateur license

2. - E1B01

Which of the following constitutes a spurious emission?

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

3. - E1C02

What is meant by automatic control of a station?

Select	Answer
A	A station operating with its output power controlled automatically
B	The use of devices and procedures for control so that the control operator does not have to be present at a control point
C	Remotely controlling a station's antenna pattern through a directional control link
D	The use of a control link between a control point and a locally controlled station

4. - E1D04

What is an Earth station in the amateur satellite service?

Select	Answer
A	An amateur station that transmits telemetry consisting of measurement of upper atmosphere
B	Any amateur station on the surface of the Earth
C	An amateur station within 50 km of the Earth's surface intended for communications with amateur stations by means of objects in space
D	An amateur station that is not able to communicate using amateur satellites

5. - E1E08

To which of the following examinees may a VE not administer an examination?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	Relatives of the VE as listed in the FCC rules
C	Employees of the VE
D	Friends of the VE

6. - E1F03

Under what circumstances may a dealer sell an external RF power amplifier capable of operation below 144 MHz if it has not been granted FCC certification?

Select	Answer
A	It was imported from a manufacturer in another country and was certificated by that country's government
B	It was purchased in used condition from an amateur operator and is sold to another amateur operator for use at that operator's station
C	The equipment dealer assembled it from a kit
D	It was imported from a manufacturer in a country that does not require certification of RF power amplifiers

7. - E2A11

What type of antenna can be used to minimize the effects of spin modulation and Faraday rotation?

Select	Answer
A	A log-periodic dipole array
B	An isotropic antenna
C	A circularly polarized antenna
D	A linearly polarized antenna

8. - E2B07

What is the name of the signal component that carries color information in NTSC video?

Select	Answer
A	Chroma
B	Luminance
C	Hue
D	Spectral Intensity

9. - E2C11

How should you generally identify your station when attempting to contact a DX station during a contest or in a pileup?

Select	Answer
A	Send your full call sign and grid square
B	Send the call sign of the DX station three times, the words "this is", then your call sign three times
C	Send only the last two letters of your call sign until you make contact
D	Send your full call sign once or twice

10. - E2D11

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

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

11. - E2E12

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

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

12. - E3A11

What is a typical range for tropospheric propagation of microwave signals?

Select	Answer
A	10 miles to 50 miles
B	100 miles to 300 miles
C	2500 miles
D	1200 miles

13. - E3B03

What is the best time of day for transequatorial propagation?

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

14. - E3C14

Why does the radio-path horizon distance exceed the geometric horizon?

Select	Answer
A	Downward bending due to density variations in the atmosphere
B	D-region skip
C	E-region skip
D	Downward bending due to aurora refraction

15. - E4A01

Which of the following parameter determines the bandwidth of a digital or computer-based oscilloscope?

Select	Answer
A	Input capacitance
B	Sampling rate
C	Input impedance
D	Sample resolution

16. - E4B17

What three test loads are used to calibrate a standard RF vector network analyzer?

Select	Answer
A	Short circuit, open circuit, and resonant circuit
B	Short circuit, open circuit, and 50 ohms
C	50 ohms through 1/8 wavelength, 1/4 wavelength, and 1/2 wavelength of coaxial cable
D	50 ohms, 75 ohms, and 90 ohms

17. - E4C05

What does a value of -174 dBm/Hz represent with regard to the noise floor of a receiver?

Select	Answer
A	The minimum detectable signal as a function of receive frequency
B	The noise figure of a 1 Hz bandwidth receiver
C	The galactic noise contribution to minimum detectable signal
D	The theoretical noise at the input of a perfect receiver at room temperature

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	146.10 MHz and 147.30 MHz
C	173.35 MHz and 139.40 MHz
D	146.88 MHz and 146.34 MHz

19. - E4E02

Which of the following types of receiver noise can often be reduced with a DSP noise filter?

Select	Answer
A	Power line noise
B	Broadband white noise
C	Ignition noise
D	All of these choices are correct

20. - E5A07

What is the magnitude of the current at the input of a parallel RLC circuit at resonance?

Select	Answer
A	Minimum
B	Maximum
C	R/L
D	L/R

21. - E5B10

What is the relationship between the current through an inductor and the voltage across an inductor?

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

22. - E5C08

What coordinate system is often used to display the phase angle of a circuit containing resistance, inductive and/or capacitive reactance?

Select	Answer
A	Faraday grid
B	Polar coordinates
C	Maidenhead grid
D	Elliptical coordinates

23. - E5D15

What is the power factor of an R-L circuit having a 45 degree phase angle between the voltage and the current?

Select	Answer
A	1.0
B	0.707
C	0.5
D	0.866

24. - E6A09

What is a depletion-mode FET?

Select	Answer
A	Any FET without a channel
B	Any FET for which holes are the majority carriers
C	An FET that exhibits a current flow between source and drain when no gate voltage is applied
D	An FET that has no current flow between source and drain when no gate voltage is applied

25. - E6B04

What type of semiconductor device is designed for use as a voltage-controlled capacitor?

Select	Answer
A	Zener diode
B	Tunnel diode
C	Varactor diode
D	Silicon-controlled rectifier

26. - E6C14

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

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

27. - E6D12

What is the definition of saturation in a ferrite core inductor?

Select	Answer
A	The ability of the inductor's core to store magnetic energy has been exceeded
B	Adjacent inductors become over-coupled
C	The inductor's voltage rating is exceeded causing a flashover
D	The inductor windings are over coupled

28. - E6E01

Which of the following is true of a charge-coupled device (CCD)?

Select	Answer
A	It samples an analog signal and passes it in stages from the input to the output
B	It is used in a battery charger circuit
C	Its phase shift changes rapidly with frequency
D	It is a CMOS analog-to-digital converter

29. - E6F07

What is a solid state relay?

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

30. - E7A02

What is the function of a decade counter digital IC?

Select	Answer
A	It decodes a decimal number for display on a seven segment LED display
B	It produces ten output pulses for every input pulse
C	It adds two decimal numbers together
D	It produces one output pulse for every ten input pulses

31. - E7B08

How can an RF power amplifier be neutralized?

Select	Answer
A	By increasing the driving power
B	By reducing the driving power
C	By feeding an in-phase component of the output back to the input
D	By feeding a 180-degree out-of-phase portion of the output back to the input

32. - E7C03

What advantage does a Pi-L-network have over a regular Pi-network for impedance matching between the final amplifier of a vacuum-tube transmitter and an antenna?

Select	Answer
A	Lower losses
B	Greater harmonic suppression
C	Higher efficiency
D	Greater transformation range

33. - E7D12

What is the drop-out voltage of an analog voltage regulator?

Select	Answer
A	Maximum amount that the output voltage may decrease at rated load
B	Minimum input voltage for rated power dissipation
C	Maximum amount that the output voltage drops when the input voltage is varied over its specified range
D	Minimum input-to-output voltage required to maintain regulation

34. - E7E07

What is meant by the term baseband in radio communications?

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

35. - E7F14

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

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

36. - E7G06

Which of the following is the most appropriate use of an op-amp active filter?

Select	Answer
A	For smoothing power supply output
B	As a low-pass filter used between a transmitter and a transmission line
C	As a high-pass filter used to block RFI at the input to receivers
D	As an audio filter in a receiver

37. - E7H11

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

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

38. - E8A04

What is "dither" with respect to analog to digital converters?

Select	Answer
A	A method of decimation by randomly skipping samples
B	A small amount of noise added to the input signal to allow more precise representation of a signal over time
C	An abnormal condition where the converter cannot settle on a value to represent the signal
D	An error caused by irregular quantization step size

39. - E8B09

What is meant by deviation ratio?

Select	Answer
A	The ratio of the highest audio modulating frequency to the average audio modulating frequency
B	The ratio of the audio modulating frequency to the center carrier frequency
C	The ratio of the carrier center frequency to the audio modulating frequency
D	The ratio of the maximum carrier frequency deviation to the highest audio modulating frequency

40. - E8C11

What is the relationship between symbol rate and baud?

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

41. - E8D08

What parameter might indicate that excessively high input levels are causing distortion in an AFSK signal?

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

42. - E9A15

What is the effective radiated power relative to a dipole of a repeater station with 150 watts transmitter power output, 2 dB feed line loss, 2.2 dB duplexer loss, and 7 dBd antenna gain?

Select	Answer
A	286 watts
B	420 watts
C	78.7 watts
D	1977 watts

43. - E9B02

In the antenna radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-1, what is the front-to-back ratio?

Select	Answer
A	14 dB
B	24 dB
C	18 dB
D	36 dB

44. - E9C08

What is a folded dipole antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A type of ground-plane antenna
B	A dipole one-quarter wavelength long
C	A dipole configured to provide forward gain
D	A dipole consisting of one wavelength of wire forming a very thin loop

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

46. - E9E02

What is the name of an antenna matching system that matches an unbalanced feed line to an antenna by feeding the driven element both at the center of the element and at a fraction of a wavelength to one side of center?

Select	Answer
A	The stub match
B	The delta match
C	The gamma match
D	The epsilon match

47. - E9F16

Which of the following is a significant difference between foam dielectric coaxial cable and solid dielectric cable, assuming all other parameters are the same?

Select	Answer
A	Foam dielectric has lower loss per unit of length
B	All of these choices are correct
C	Foam dielectric has higher velocity factor
D	Foam dielectric has lower safe operating voltage limits

48. - E9G02

What type of coordinate system is used in a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Resistance lines and reactance chords
B	Resistance circles and reactance arcs
C	Voltage circles and current arcs
D	Voltage lines and current chords

49. - E9H01

When constructing a Beverage antenna, which of the following factors should be included in the design to achieve good performance at the desired frequency?

Select	Answer
A	It must be mounted more than 1 wavelength above ground
B	Its overall length must not exceed 1/4 wavelength
C	It should be configured as a four-sided loop
D	It should be one or more wavelengths long

50. - E0A05

What is one of the potential hazards of using microwaves in the amateur radio bands?

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

Figure E9-1