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

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1. - E1A06

Where must the carrier frequency of a CW signal be set to comply with FCC rules for 60 meter operation?

Select	Answer
A	At the lowest frequency of the channel
B	At the highest frequency of the channel
C	At the center frequency of the channel
D	On any frequency where the signal's sidebands are within the channel

2. - E1B06

Which of the following additional rules apply if you are installing an amateur station antenna at a site at or near a public use airport?

Select	Answer
A	You may have to notify the Federal Aviation Administration and register it with the FCC as required by Part 17 of FCC rules
B	You must file an Environmental Impact Statement with the EPA before construction begins
C	No special rules apply if your antenna structure will be less than 300 feet in height
D	You must obtain a construction permit from the airport zoning authority

3. - E1C09

Which of these ranges of frequencies is available for an automatically controlled repeater operating below 30 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	29.500 MHz - 29.700 MHz
B	24.940 MHz - 24.990 MHz
C	10.100 MHz - 10.150 MHz
D	18.110 MHz - 18.168 MHz

4. - E1D09

Which UHF amateur service bands have frequencies available for a space station?

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

5. - E1E12

What must the VE team do with the application form if the examinee does not pass the exam?

Select	Answer
A	Return the application document to the examinee
B	Destroy the application form
C	Maintain the application form with the VEC's records
D	Send the application form to the FCC and inform the FCC of the grade

6. - E1F04

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

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

7. - E2A11

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

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

8. - E2B13

How many lines are commonly used in each frame of an amateur slow-scan color television picture?

Select	Answer
A	30 or 60
B	60 or 100
C	180 or 360
D	128 or 256

9. - E2C13

What indicator is required to be used by U.S.-licensed operators when operating a station via remote control where the transmitter is located in the U.S.?

Select	Answer
A	/R# where # is the district of the remote station
B	/ followed by the USPS two letter abbreviation for the state in which the remote station is located
C	No additional indicator is required
D	The ARRL section of the remote station

10. - E2D08

What type of packet frame is used to transmit APRS beacon data?

Select	Answer
A	Acknowledgement
B	Connect
C	Unnumbered Information
D	Disconnect

11. - E2E01

Which type of modulation is common for data emissions below 30 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	Pulse modulation
B	DTMF tones modulating an FM signal
C	Spread spectrum
D	FSK

12. - E3A03

When scheduling EME contacts, which of these conditions will generally result in the least path loss?

Select	Answer
A	When the Moon is at perigee
B	When the Moon is full
C	When the Moon is at apogee
D	When the MUF is above 30 MHz

13. - E3B12

What is the primary characteristic of chordal hop propagation?

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

14. - E3C12

How does the maximum distance of ground-wave propagation change when the signal frequency is increased?

Select	Answer
A	It peaks at roughly 14 MHz
B	It decreases
C	It increases
D	It stays the same

15. - E4A09

When using a computer's soundcard input to digitize signals, what is the highest frequency signal that can be digitized without aliasing?

Select	Answer
A	One-tenth the sample rate
B	It depends on how the data is stored internally
C	The same as the sample rate
D	One-half the sample rate

16. - E4B05

If a frequency counter with a specified accuracy of +/- 10 ppm reads 146,520,000 Hz, what is the most the actual frequency being measured could differ from the reading?

Select	Answer
A	1465.20 Hz
B	146.52 Hz
C	146.52 kHz
D	10 Hz

17. - E4C01

What is an effect of excessive phase noise in the local oscillator section of a receiver?

Select	Answer
A	It limits the receiver's ability to receive strong signals
B	It reduces receiver sensitivity
C	It decreases receiver third-order intermodulation distortion dynamic range
D	It can cause strong signals on nearby frequencies to interfere with reception of weak signals

18. - E4D07

Which describes the most significant effect of an off-frequency signal when it is causing cross-modulation interference to a desired signal?

Select	Answer
A	The desired signal can no longer be heard
B	A reduction in apparent signal strength
C	The off-frequency unwanted signal is heard in addition to the desired signal
D	A large increase in background noise

19. - E4E10

What is a common characteristic of interference caused by a touch controlled electrical device?

Select	Answer
A	The interfering signal may drift slowly across the HF spectrum
B	All of these choices are correct
C	The interfering signal can be several kHz in width and usually repeats at regular intervals across a HF band
D	The interfering signal sounds like AC hum on an AM receiver or a carrier modulated by 60 Hz hum on a SSB or CW receiver

20. - E5A08

What is the phase relationship between the current through and the voltage across a series resonant circuit at resonance?

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

21. - E5B02

What is the term for the time it takes for a charged capacitor in an RC circuit to discharge to 36.8% of its initial voltage?

Select	Answer
A	An exponential discharge rate of one
B	One time constant
C	A discharge factor of one
D	One discharge period

22. - E5C07

What is a vector?

Select	Answer
A	The inverse of the sine function
B	The inverse of the tangent function
C	A quantity with both magnitude and an angular component
D	The value of a quantity that changes over time

23. - E5D04

Why are short connections necessary at microwave frequencies?

Select	Answer
A	To increase neutralizing resistance
B	To reduce noise figure
C	Because of ground reflections
D	To reduce phase shift along the connection

24. - E6A01

In what application is gallium arsenide used as a semiconductor material in preference to germanium or silicon?

Select	Answer
A	In very low frequency RF circuits
B	In high-current rectifier circuits
C	In high-power audio circuits
D	In microwave circuits

25. - E6B12

What is one common use for PIN diodes?

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

26. - E6C09

What is a Programmable Logic Device (PLD)?

Select	Answer
A	An algorithm for simulating logic functions during circuit design
B	A device to control industrial equipment
C	A programmable collection of logic gates and circuits in a single integrated circuit
D	Programmable equipment used for testing digital logic integrated circuits

27. - E6D14

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

Select	Answer
A	Powdered-iron
B	Brass
C	Ferrite
D	Ceramic

28. - E6E10

What is the packaging technique in which leadless components are soldered directly to circuit boards?

Select	Answer
A	Stripped lead
B	Virtual lead mounting
C	Direct soldering
D	Surface mount

29. - E6F13

What is a liquid crystal display (LCD)?

Select	Answer
A	A display utilizing a crystalline liquid and polarizing filters which becomes opaque when voltage is applied
B	A display that uses a glowing liquid to remain brightly lit in dim light
C	A frequency-determining unit for a transmitter or receiver
D	A modern replacement for a quartz crystal oscillator which displays its fundamental frequency

30. - E7A06

What is a characteristic of a monostable multivibrator?

Select	Answer
A	It stores one bit of data in either a 0 or 1 state
B	It maintains a constant output voltage, regardless of variations in the input voltage
C	It produces a continuous square wave oscillating between 1 and 0
D	It switches momentarily to the opposite binary state and then returns to its original state after a set time

31. - E7B03

Which of the following components form the output of a class D amplifier circuit?

Select	Answer
A	A matched load resistor to prevent damage by switching transients
B	A high-pass filter to compensate for low gain at low frequencies
C	A low-pass filter to remove switching signal components
D	A temperature compensating load resistor to improve linearity

32. - E7C04

How does an impedance-matching circuit transform a complex impedance to a resistive impedance?

Select	Answer
A	It cancels the reactive part of the impedance and changes the resistive part to a desired value
B	It introduces negative resistance to cancel the resistive part of impedance
C	Network resistances are substituted for load resistances and reactances are matched to the resistances
D	It introduces transconductance to cancel the reactive part of impedance

33. - E7D12

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

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

34. - E7E06

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

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

35. - E7F08

What is the function of decimation with regard to digital filters?

Select	Answer
A	Attenuating the signal
B	Removing unnecessary significant digits
C	Converting data to binary code decimal form
D	Reducing the effective sample rate by removing samples

36. - E7G08

How does the gain of an ideal operational amplifier vary with frequency?

Select	Answer
A	It decreases linearly with increasing frequency
B	It increases linearly with increasing frequency
C	It decreases logarithmically with increasing frequency
D	It does not vary with frequency

37. - E7H08

Which of the following components can be used to reduce thermal drift in crystal oscillators?

Select	Answer
A	Toroidal inductors
B	Wirewound resistors
C	NP0 capacitors
D	Non-inductive resistors

38. - E8A09

How many levels can an analog-to-digital converter with 8 bit resolution encode?

Select	Answer
A	8 multiplied by the gain of the input amplifier
B	8
C	256
D	256 divided by the gain of the input amplifier

39. - E8B10

What describes frequency division multiplexing?

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

40. - E8C07

What is the necessary bandwidth of a 4800-Hz frequency shift, 9600-baud ASCII FM transmission?

Select	Answer
A	5.76 kHz
B	4.8 kHz
C	15.36 kHz
D	9.6 kHz

41. - E8D01

Why are received spread spectrum signals resistant to interference?

Select	Answer
A	If interference is detected by the receiver it will signal the transmitter to change frequencies
B	The high power used by a spread spectrum transmitter keeps its signal from being easily overpowered
C	The receiver is always equipped with a digital blanker
D	Signals not using the spread spectrum algorithm are suppressed in the receiver

42. - E9A10

Which of the following choices is a way to improve the efficiency of a ground-mounted quarter-wave vertical antenna?

Select	Answer
A	Install a good radial system
B	Isolate the coax shield from ground
C	Reduce the diameter of the radiating element
D	Shorten the radiating element

43. - E9B04

What may occur when a directional antenna is operated at different frequencies within the band for which it was designed?

Select	Answer
A	The gain may change depending on frequency
B	Feed point impedance may become negative
C	The E-field and H-field patterns may reverse
D	Element spacing limits could be exceeded

44. - E9C10

Which of the following describes a Zepp antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A dipole constructed from zip cord
B	A vertical array capable of quickly changing the direction of maximum radiation by changing phasing lines
C	An omni-directional antenna commonly used for satellite communications
D	An end fed dipole antenna

45. - E9D13

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

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

46. - E9E06

What is the equivalent lumped-constant network for a hairpin matching system of a 3-element Yagi?

Select	Answer
A	A series capacitor
B	Pi-L-network
C	A shunt inductor
D	Pi-network

47. - E9F03

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

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

48. - E9G08

What is the process of normalization with regard to a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Reassigning reactance values with regard to the resistance axis
B	Reassigning prime center with regard to the reactance axis
C	Reassigning impedance values with regard to the prime center
D	Reassigning resistance values with regard to the reactance axis

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	It should be configured as a four-sided loop
C	Its overall length must not exceed 1/4 wavelength
D	It should be one or more wavelengths long

50. - E0A01

What is the primary function of an external earth connection or ground rod?

Select	Answer
A	Reduce received noise
B	Reduce RFI to telephones and home entertainment systems
C	Reduce RF current flow between pieces of equipment
D	Lightning protection