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	2.8 kHz
C	170 Hz
D	1.5 kHz

2. - E1B01

Which of the following constitutes a spurious emission?

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

3. - E1C04

What is meant by IARP?

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

4. - E1D08

Which VHF amateur service bands have frequencies available for space stations?

Select	Answer
A	2 meters and 1.25 meters
B	6 meters and 2 meters
C	2 meters
D	6 meters, 2 meters, and 1.25 meters

5. - E1E11

What must the VE team do if an examinee scores a passing grade on all examination elements needed for an upgrade or new license?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	Photocopy all examination documents and forward them to the FCC for processing
C	Three VEs must certify that the examinee is qualified for the license grant and that they have complied with the administering VE requirements
D	Issue the examinee the new or upgrade license

6. - E1F05

Amateur stations may not transmit in which of the following frequency segments if they are located in the contiguous 48 states and north of Line A?

Select	Answer
A	440 MHz - 450 MHz
B	53 MHz - 54 MHz
C	222 MHz - 223 MHz
D	420 MHz - 430 MHz

7. - E2A14

What technology is used to track, in real time, balloons carrying amateur radio transmitters?

Select	Answer
A	Radar
B	Bandwidth compressed LORAN
C	APRS
D	Doppler shift of beacon signals

8. - E2B12

How are analog SSTV images typically transmitted on the HF bands?

Select	Answer
A	Video is converted to equivalent Baudot representation
B	Varying tone frequencies representing the video are transmitted using single sideband
C	Video is converted to equivalent ASCII representation
D	Varying tone frequencies representing the video are transmitted using PSK

9. - E2C07

What is the Cabrillo format?

Select	Answer
A	The rules of order for meetings between contest sponsors
B	A method of exchanging information during a contest QSO
C	The most common set of contest rules
D	A standard for submission of electronic contest logs

10. - E2D06

Which of the following describes a method of establishing EME contacts?

Select	Answer
A	Storing and forwarding digital messages
B	Time synchronous transmissions alternately from each station
C	Judging optimum transmission times by monitoring beacons reflected from the Moon
D	High speed CW identification to avoid fading

11. - E2E08

Which of the following HF digital modes can be used to transfer binary files?

Select	Answer
A	PACTOR
B	RTTY
C	AMTOR
D	Hellschreiber

12. - E3A07

Atmospheric ducts capable of propagating microwave signals often form over what geographic feature?

Select	Answer
A	Mountain ranges
B	Bodies of water
C	Urban areas
D	Forests

13. - E3B12

What is the primary characteristic of chordal hop propagation?

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

14. - E3C08

What does the space weather term G5 mean?

Select	Answer
A	Very low solar activity
B	Moderate solar wind
C	An extreme geomagnetic storm
D	Waning sunspot numbers

15. - E4A11

Which of the following is good practice when using an oscilloscope probe?

Select	Answer
A	Keep the signal ground connection of the probe as short as possible
B	All of these choices are correct
C	Never use a high impedance probe to measure a low impedance circuit
D	Never use a DC-coupled probe to measure an AC circuit

16. - E4B11

How should an antenna analyzer be connected when measuring antenna resonance and feed point impedance?

Select	Answer
A	Connect the analyzer via a high-impedance transformer to the antenna
B	Connect the antenna feed line directly to the analyzer's connector
C	Loosely couple the antenna and a dummy load to the analyzer
D	Loosely couple the analyzer near the antenna base

17. - E4C15

What is usually the primary source of noise that is heard from an HF receiver with an antenna connected?

Select	Answer
A	Atmospheric noise
B	Induction motor noise
C	Detector noise
D	Receiver front-end noise

18. - E4D06

What is the term for unwanted signals generated by the mixing of two or more signals?

Select	Answer
A	Intermodulation interference
B	Adjacent channel interference
C	Amplifier desensitization
D	Neutralization

19. - E4E08

What type of signal is picked up by electrical wiring near a radio antenna?

Select	Answer
A	An electrical-sparking signal
B	A common-mode signal at the frequency of the radio transmitter
C	A differential-mode signal at the AC power line frequency
D	Harmonics of the AC power line frequency

20. - E5A12

What is the half-power bandwidth of a parallel resonant circuit that has a resonant frequency of 3.7 MHz and a Q of 118?

Select	Answer
A	15.7 kHz
B	218.3 kHz
C	31.4 kHz
D	436.6 kHz

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

22. - E5C15

Which point in Figure E5-2 best represents the impedance of a series circuit consisting of a 300 ohm resistor and an 18 microhenry inductor at 3.505 MHz?

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

23. - E5D10

How can the true power be determined in an AC circuit where the voltage and current are out of phase?

Select	Answer
A	By dividing the apparent power by the power factor
B	By multiplying the apparent power times the power factor
C	By multiplying the reactive power times the power factor
D	By dividing the reactive power by the power factor

24. - E6A02

Which of the following semiconductor materials contains excess free electrons?

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

25. - E6B05

What characteristic of a PIN diode makes it useful as an RF switch or attenuator?

Select	Answer
A	Extremely high reverse breakdown voltage
B	A large region of intrinsic material
C	Ability to dissipate large amounts of power
D	Reverse bias controls its forward voltage drop

26. - E6C04

What is the primary advantage of tri-state logic?

Select	Answer
A	High speed operation
B	More efficient arithmetic operations
C	Low power consumption
D	Ability to connect many device outputs to a common bus

27. - E6D17

Why should core saturation of a conventional impedance matching transformer be avoided?

Select	Answer
A	Magnetic flux would increase with frequency
B	Harmonics and distortion could result
C	Temporary changes of the core permeability could result
D	RF susceptance would increase

28. - E6E07

Which of the following is typically used to construct a MMIC-based microwave amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	Point-to-point construction
B	Ground-plane construction
C	Wave-soldering construction
D	Microstrip construction

29. - E6F02

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

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

30. - E7A04

How many flip-flops are required to divide a signal frequency by 4?

Select	Answer
A	2
B	1
C	4
D	8

31. - E7B18

What is a characteristic of a grounded-grid amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	High power gain
B	Low bandwidth
C	Low input impedance
D	High filament voltage

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

33. - E7D13

What is the equation for calculating power dissipation by a series connected linear voltage regulator?

Select	Answer
A	Input voltage multiplied by input current
B	Voltage difference from input to output multiplied by output current
C	Input voltage divided by output current
D	Output voltage multiplied by output current

34. - E7E02

What is the function of a reactance modulator?

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

35. - E7F09

Why is an anti-aliasing digital filter required in a digital decimator?

Select	Answer
A	It removes high-frequency signal components which would otherwise be reproduced as lower frequency components
B	It removes low frequency signal components to eliminate the need for DC restoration
C	It notches out the sampling frequency to avoid sampling errors
D	It peaks the response of the decimator, improving bandwidth

36. - E7G09

What will be the output voltage of the circuit shown in Figure E7-4 if R1 is 1000 ohms, RF is 10,000 ohms, and 0.23 volts DC is applied to the input?

Select	Answer
A	-2.3 volts
B	-0.23 volts
C	2.3 volts
D	0.23 volts

37. - E7H03

How is positive feedback supplied in a Hartley oscillator?

Select	Answer
A	Through a capacitive divider
B	Through link coupling
C	Through a tapped coil
D	Through a neutralizing capacitor

38. - E8A11

What type of information can be conveyed using digital waveforms?

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

39. - E8B08

What describes Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing?

Select	Answer
A	A frequency modulation technique which uses non-harmonically related frequencies
B	A bandwidth compression technique using Fourier transforms
C	A digital mode for narrow band, slow speed transmissions
D	A digital modulation technique using subcarriers at frequencies chosen to avoid intersymbol interference

40. - E8C08

How does ARQ accomplish error correction?

Select	Answer
A	If errors are detected, a retransmission is requested
B	Special polynomial codes provide automatic correction
C	Special binary codes provide automatic correction
D	If errors are detected, redundant data is substituted

41. - E8D03

How does the spread spectrum technique of frequency hopping work?

Select	Answer
A	If interference is detected by the receiver it will signal the transmitter to wait until the frequency is clear
B	The frequency of the transmitted signal is changed very rapidly according to a particular sequence also used by the receiving station
C	If interference is detected by the receiver it will signal the transmitter to change frequencies
D	A pseudo-random binary bit stream is used to shift the phase of an RF carrier very rapidly in a particular sequence

42. - E9A04

Which of the following factors may affect the feed point impedance of an antenna?

Select	Answer
A	Sunspot activity and time of day
B	Antenna height, conductor length/diameter ratio and location of nearby conductive objects
C	The settings of an antenna tuner at the transmitter
D	Transmission-line length

43. - E9B12

What is the far field of an antenna?

Select	Answer
A	The region of the ionosphere where radiated power is not refracted
B	The region where radiated field strengths are obstructed by objects of reflection
C	The region where the shape of the antenna pattern is independent of distance
D	The region where radiated power dissipates over a specified time period

44. - E9C15

How does the radiation pattern of a horizontally polarized 3-element beam antenna vary with its height above ground?

Select	Answer
A	The horizontal beam width decreases with height
B	The main lobe takeoff angle decreases with increasing height
C	The horizontal beam width increases with height
D	The main lobe takeoff angle increases with increasing height

45. - E9D01

How does the gain of an ideal parabolic dish antenna change when the operating frequency is doubled?

Select	Answer
A	Gain increases by 6 dB
B	Gain is multiplied by 0.707
C	Gain does not change
D	Gain increases by 3 dB

46. - E9E10

Which of these choices is an effective way to match an antenna with a 100 ohm feed point impedance to a 50 ohm coaxial cable feed line?

Select	Answer
A	Connect a 1/4-wavelength open stub of 300 ohm twin-lead in parallel with the coaxial feed line where it connects to the antenna
B	Insert a 1/2 wavelength piece of 300 ohm twin-lead in series between the antenna terminals and the 50 ohm feed cable
C	Insert a 1/4-wavelength piece of 75 ohm coaxial cable transmission line in series between the antenna terminals and the 50 ohm feed cable
D	Connect 1/2 wavelength shorted stub of 75 ohm cable in parallel with the 50 ohm cable where it attaches to the antenna

47. - E9F10

What impedance does a 1/8 wavelength transmission line present to a generator when the line is shorted at the far end?

Select	Answer
A	An inductive reactance
B	The same as the input impedance to the final generator stage
C	The same as the characteristic impedance of the line
D	A capacitive reactance

48. - E9G06

On the Smith chart shown in Figure E9-3, what is the name for the large outer circle on which the reactance arcs terminate?

Select	Answer
A	Polar axis
B	Prime axis
C	Impedance axis
D	Reactance axis

49. - E9H04

What is an advantage of using a shielded loop antenna for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	It automatically cancels ignition noise in mobile installations
B	It eliminates tracking errors caused by strong out-of-band signals
C	It is electro statically balanced against ground, giving better nulls
D	It allows stations to communicate without giving away their position

50. - E0A09

Which insulating material commonly used as a thermal conductor for some types of electronic devices is extremely toxic if broken or crushed and the particles are accidentally inhaled?

Select	Answer
A	Zinc oxide
B	Uranium Hexafluoride
C	Mica
D	Beryllium Oxide

Figure E5-2

Figure E7-4

Figure E9-3