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

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1. - E1A14

What is the maximum bandwidth for a data emission on 60 meters?

Select	Answer
A	60 Hz
B	170 Hz
C	1.5 kHz
D	2.8 kHz

2. - 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 Historical Places?

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

3. - E1C11

Which of the following operating arrangements allows an FCC-licensed U.S. citizen to operate in many European countries, and alien amateurs from many European countries to operate in the U.S.?

Select	Answer
A	IARP agreement
B	ITU reciprocal license
C	CEPT agreement
D	All of these choices are correct

4. - E1D04

What is an Earth station in the amateur satellite service?

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

5. - E1E12

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

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

6. - E1F11

Which of the following best describes one of the standards that must be met by an external RF power amplifier if it is to qualify for a grant of FCC certification?

Select	Answer
A	It must exhibit a gain of 0 dB or less over its full output range
B	It must be capable of external RF switching between its input and output networks
C	It must produce full legal output when driven by not more than 5 watts of mean RF input power
D	It must satisfy the FCC's spurious emission standards when operated at the lesser of 1500 watts or its full output power

7. - E2A12

What is one way to predict the location of a satellite at a given time?

Select	Answer
A	By subtracting the mean anomaly from the orbital inclination
B	By calculations using the Keplerian elements for the specified satellite
C	By adding the mean anomaly to the orbital inclination
D	By means of the Doppler data for the specified satellite

8. - E2B15

What signals SSTV receiving equipment to begin a new picture line?

Select	Answer
A	Specific tone amplitudes
B	Specific tone frequencies
C	A two-tone signal
D	Elapsed time

9. - E2C09

What type of equipment is commonly used to implement a ham radio mesh network?

Select	Answer
A	A 440 MHz transceiver with a 9600 baud modem
B	A 2 meter VHF transceiver with a 1200 baud modem
C	A standard wireless router running custom software
D	An optical cable connection between the USB ports of 2 separate computers

10. - E2D03

Which of the following digital modes is especially useful for EME communications?

Select	Answer
A	Olivia
B	FSK441
C	JT65
D	PACTOR III

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. - E3A09

Which of the following frequency range is most suited for meteor scatter communications?

Select	Answer
A	1.8 MHz - 1.9 MHz
B	10 MHz - 14 MHz
C	28 MHz - 148 MHz
D	220 MHz - 450 MHz

13. - E3B07

Which of the following could account for hearing an echo on the received signal of a distant station?

Select	Answer
A	High D layer absorption
B	Meteor scatter
C	Receipt of a signal by more than one path
D	Transmit frequency is higher than the MUF

14. - E3C04

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

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

15. - E4A06

What is the effect of aliasing in a digital or computer-based oscilloscope?

Select	Answer
A	Calibration of the vertical scale is no longer valid
B	False signals are displayed
C	All signals will have a DC offset
D	False triggering occurs

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	146.52 Hz
B	146.52 kHz
C	10 Hz
D	1465.20 Hz

17. - E4C06

A CW receiver with the AGC off has an equivalent input noise power density of -174 dBm/Hz. What would be the level of an unmodulated carrier input to this receiver that would yield an audio output SNR of 0 dB in a 400 Hz noise bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	-164 dBm
B	-174 dBm
C	-155 dBm
D	-148 dBm

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 large increase in background noise
C	A reduction in apparent signal strength
D	The off-frequency unwanted signal is heard in addition to the desired signal

19. - E4E05

How can noise from an electric motor be suppressed?

Select	Answer
A	By using a ground-fault current interrupter in the circuit used to power the motor
B	By installing a bypass capacitor in series with the motor leads
C	By installing a brute-force AC-line filter in series with the motor leads
D	By installing a high pass filter in series with the motor's power leads

20. - E5A01

What can cause the voltage across reactances in series to be larger than the voltage applied to them?

Select	Answer
A	Conductance
B	Capacitance
C	Resonance
D	Resistance

21. - E5B04

What is the time constant of a circuit having two 220 microfarad capacitors and two 1 megohm resistors, all in parallel?

Select	Answer
A	110 seconds
B	55 seconds
C	440 seconds
D	220 seconds

22. - E5C16

Which point on Figure E5-2 best represents the impedance of a series circuit consisting of a 300 ohm resistor and a 19 picofarad capacitor at 21.200 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	Point 3
B	Point 1
C	Point 7
D	Point 8

23. - E5D01

What is the result of skin effect?

Select	Answer
A	Thermal effects on the surface of the conductor increase the impedance
B	As frequency increases, RF current flows in a thinner layer of the conductor, closer to the surface
C	Thermal effects on the surface of the conductor decrease the impedance
D	As frequency decreases, RF current flows in a thinner layer of the conductor, closer to the surface

24. - E6A05

What is the alpha of a bipolar junction transistor?

Select	Answer
A	The change of collector current with respect to base current
B	The change of base current with respect to collector current
C	The change of collector current with respect to gate current
D	The change of collector current with respect to emitter current

25. - E6B08

Which of the following describes a type of semiconductor diode?

Select	Answer
A	Electrolytic rectifier
B	Thermionic emission diode
C	Metal-semiconductor junction
D	CMOS-field effect

26. - E6C09

What is a Programmable Logic Device (PLD)?

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

27. - E6D11

How many turns will be required to produce a 1-mH inductor using a core that has an inductance index (A L) value of 523 millihenrys/1000 turns?

Select	Answer
A	43 turns
B	229 turns
C	4 turns
D	2 turns

28. - E6E04

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

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

29. - E6F02

What happens to the conductivity of a photoconductive material when light shines on it?

Select	Answer
A	It increases
B	It stays the same
C	It decreases
D	It becomes unstable

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

31. - E7B09

Which of the following describes how the loading and tuning capacitors are to be adjusted when tuning a vacuum tube RF power amplifier that employs a Pi-network output circuit?

Select	Answer
A	The tuning capacitor is adjusted for minimum plate current, and the loading capacitor is adjusted for maximum permissible plate current
B	The loading capacitor is set to maximum capacitance and the tuning capacitor is adjusted for minimum allowable plate current
C	The loading capacitor is adjusted to minimum plate current while alternately adjusting the tuning capacitor for maximum allowable plate current
D	The tuning capacitor is set to maximum capacitance and the loading capacitor is adjusted for minimum plate permissible current

32. - E7C07

What kind of filter would you use to attenuate an interfering carrier signal while receiving an SSB transmission?

Select	Answer
A	An all-pass filter
B	A Pi-network filter
C	A notch filter
D	A band-pass filter

33. - E7D08

What type of circuit is shown in Figure E7-3?

Select	Answer
A	Linear voltage regulator
B	Emitter follower
C	Grounded emitter amplifier
D	Switching voltage regulator

34. - E7E05

What circuit is added to an FM transmitter to boost the higher audio frequencies?

Select	Answer
A	A pre-emphasis network
B	A de-emphasis network
C	An audio prescaler
D	A heterodyne suppressor

35. - E7F05

How frequently must an analog signal be sampled by an analog-to-digital converter so that the signal can be accurately reproduced?

Select	Answer
A	At the same rate as the highest frequency component of the signal
B	At half the rate of the highest frequency component of the signal
C	At twice the rate of the highest frequency component of the signal
D	At four times the rate of the highest frequency component of the signal

36. - E7G05

How can unwanted ringing and audio instability be prevented in a multi-section op-amp RC audio filter circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Restrict Q but increase gain
B	Restrict gain but increase Q
C	Restrict both gain and Q
D	Increase both gain and Q

37. - E7H15

Which of these functions can be performed by a phase-locked loop?

Select	Answer
A	Comparison of two digital input signals, digital pulse counter
B	Wide-band AF and RF power amplification
C	Photovoltaic conversion, optical coupling
D	Frequency synthesis, FM demodulation

38. - E8A09

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

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

39. - E8B05

What is the deviation ratio of an FM-phone signal having a maximum frequency swing of plus-or-minus 5 kHz when the maximum modulation frequency is 3 kHz?

Select	Answer
A	0.167
B	60
C	0.6
D	1.67

40. - E8C03

When performing phase shift keying, why is it advantageous to shift phase precisely at the zero crossing of the RF carrier?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	It improves carrier suppression
C	It is easier to demodulate with a conventional, non-synchronous detector
D	This results in the least possible transmitted bandwidth for the particular mode

41. - E8D07

What is a common cause of overmodulation of AFSK signals?

Select	Answer
A	Excessive transmit audio levels
B	Excessive numbers of retries
C	Ground loops
D	Bit errors in the modem

42. - E9A12

How much gain does an antenna have compared to a 1/2-wavelength dipole when it has 6 dB gain over an isotropic antenna?

Select	Answer
A	8.15 dB
B	2.79 dB
C	6.0 dB
D	3.85 dB

43. - E9B08

How can the approximate beam-width in a given plane of a directional antenna be determined?

Select	Answer
A	Draw two imaginary lines through the ends of the elements and measure the angle between the lines
B	Measure the ratio of the signal strengths of the radiated power lobes from the front and rear of the antenna
C	Measure the ratio of the signal strengths of the radiated power lobes from the front and side of the antenna
D	Note the two points where the signal strength of the antenna is 3 dB less than maximum and compute the angular difference

44. - E9C07

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

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

45. - E9D08

What happens as the Q of an antenna increases?

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

46. - E9E08

Which of the following measurements is characteristic of a mismatched transmission line?

Select	Answer
A	An SWR less than 1:1
B	A dielectric constant greater than 1
C	A reflection coefficient greater than 1
D	An SWR greater than 1:1

47. - E9F05

What is the approximate physical length of a solid polyethylene dielectric coaxial transmission line that is electrically one-quarter wavelength long at 14.1 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	2.3 meters
B	0.2 meters
C	3.5 meters
D	20 meters

48. - E9G01

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

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

49. - E9H02

Which is generally true for low band (160 meter and 80 meter) receiving antennas?

Select	Answer
A	Atmospheric noise is so high that gain over a dipole is not important
B	They must be erected at least 1/2 wavelength above the ground to attain good directivity
C	All of these choices are correct
D	Low loss coax transmission line is essential for good performance

50. - E0A05

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

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

Figure E5-2

Figure E7-3