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

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

2. - E1B07

What is the highest modulation index permitted at the highest modulation frequency for angle modulation below 29.0 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	2.0
B	0.5
C	3.0
D	1.0

3. - E1C13

Which of the following is required in order to operate in accordance with CEPT rules in foreign countries where permitted?

Select	Answer
A	You must append "/CEPT" to your call sign
B	You must bring a copy of FCC Public Notice DA 11-221
C	The U.S. embassy must approve of your operation
D	You must identify in the official language of the country in which you are operating

4. - E1D06

Which of the following is a requirement of a space station?

Select	Answer
A	The space station must cease all transmissions after 5 years
B	All of these choices are correct
C	The space station must be capable of terminating transmissions by telecommand when directed by the FCC
D	The space station must be capable of changing its orbit whenever such a change is ordered by NASA

5. - E1E13

Which of these choices is an acceptable method for monitoring the applicants if a VEC opts to conduct an exam session remotely?

Select	Answer
A	The exam proctor observes the applicants and reports any violations
B	Record the exam session on video tape for later review by the VE team
C	Have each applicant sign an affidavit stating that all session rules were followed
D	Use a real-time video link and the Internet to connect the exam session to the observing VEs

6. - E1F06

Under what circumstances might the FCC issue a Special Temporary Authority (STA) to an amateur station?

Select	Answer
A	To allow regular operation on Land Mobile channels
B	To provide temporary operation while awaiting normal licensing
C	To provide for experimental amateur communications
D	To provide additional spectrum for personal use

7. - E2A03

What is the orbital period of an Earth satellite?

Select	Answer
A	The point of minimum height of a satellite's orbit
B	The point of maximum height of a satellite's orbit
C	The time it takes for a satellite to travel from perigee to apogee
D	The time it takes for a satellite to complete one revolution around the Earth

8. - E2B02

How many horizontal lines make up a fast-scan (NTSC) television frame?

Select	Answer
A	1080
B	60
C	525
D	30

9. - E2C03

From which of the following bands is amateur radio contesting generally excluded?

Select	Answer
A	33 cm
B	2 m
C	6 m
D	30 m

10. - E2D11

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

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

11. - E2E04

What is indicated when one of the ellipses in an FSK crossed-ellipse display suddenly disappears?

Select	Answer
A	Selective fading has occurred
B	The mark and space signal have been inverted
C	The receiver has drifted 5 kHz from the desired receive frequency
D	One of the signal filters is saturated

12. - E3A17

What is meant by circularly polarized electromagnetic waves?

Select	Answer
A	Waves with a rotating electric field
B	Waves with an electric field bent into a circular shape
C	Waves produced by a loop antenna
D	Waves that circle the Earth

13. - E3B10

What is the cause of gray-line propagation?

Select	Answer
A	In darkness, solar absorption drops greatly while atmospheric ionization remains steady
B	At midday, the Sun super heats the ionosphere causing increased refraction of radio waves
C	At mid-afternoon, the Sun heats the ionosphere decreasing radio wave refraction and the MUF
D	At twilight and sunrise, D-layer absorption is low while E-layer and F-layer propagation remains high

14. - E3C09

How does the intensity of an X3 flare compare to that of an X2 flare?

Select	Answer
A	10 percent greater
B	Twice as great
C	Four times as great
D	50 percent greater

15. - E4A03

Which of the following test instrument is used to display spurious signals and/or intermodulation distortion products in an SSB transmitter?

Select	Answer
A	A time-domain reflectometer
B	A spectrum analyzer
C	A wattmeter
D	A logic analyzer

16. - E4B13

Which S parameter is equivalent to forward gain?

Select	Answer
A	S22
B	S12
C	S21
D	S11

17. - E4C17

Which of the following has the largest effect on an SDR receiver's linearity?

Select	Answer
A	CPU register width in bits
B	Anti-aliasing input filter bandwidth
C	RAM speed used for data storage
D	Analog-to-digital converter sample width in bits

18. - E4D06

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

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

19. - E4E11

Which is the most likely cause if you are hearing combinations of local AM broadcast signals within one or more of the MF or HF ham bands?

Select	Answer
A	Your station receiver IF amplifier stage is defective
B	The broadcast station is transmitting an over-modulated signal
C	Nearby corroded metal joints are mixing and re-radiating the broadcast signals
D	You are receiving sky wave signals from a distant station

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

21. - E5B01

What is the term for the time required for the capacitor in an RC circuit to be charged to 63.2% of the applied voltage?

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

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 1
D	Point 8

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	0.707
B	0.866
C	0.5
D	1.0

24. - E6A02

Which of the following semiconductor materials contains excess free electrons?

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

25. - E6B03

What special type of diode is capable of both amplification and oscillation?

Select	Answer
A	Tunnel
B	Junction
C	Zener
D	Point contact

26. - E6C05

What is an advantage of CMOS logic devices over TTL devices?

Select	Answer
A	Immune to damage from static discharge
B	Lower power consumption
C	Differential output capability
D	Lower distortion

27. - E6D16

What is the common name for a capacitor connected across a transformer secondary that is used to absorb transient voltage spikes?

Select	Answer
A	Trimmer capacitor
B	Snubber capacitor
C	Feedback capacitor
D	Clipper capacitor

28. - E6E03

Which of the following materials is likely to provide the highest frequency of operation when used in MMICs?

Select	Answer
A	Silicon
B	Silicon nitride
C	Gallium nitride
D	Silicon dioxide

29. - E6F05

Which describes an optical shaft encoder?

Select	Answer
A	A device which measures the strength of a beam of light using analog to digital conversion
B	A device which detects rotation of a control by interrupting a light source with a patterned wheel
C	A digital encryption device often used to encrypt spacecraft control signals
D	A device for generating RTTY signals by means of a rotating light source

30. - E7A11

What type of logic defines "1" as a high voltage?

Select	Answer
A	Assertive Logic
B	Negative logic
C	Positive Logic
D	Reverse Logic

31. - E7B07

Which of the following is a likely result when a Class C amplifier is used to amplify a single-sideband phone signal?

Select	Answer
A	Reduced intermodulation products
B	Signal inversion
C	Increased overall intelligibility
D	Signal distortion and excessive bandwidth

32. - E7C11

Which of the following is the common name for a filter network which is equivalent to two L-networks connected back-to-back with the two inductors in series and the capacitors in shunt at the input and output?

Select	Answer
A	Cascode
B	Omega
C	Pi
D	Pi-L

33. - E7D05

Which of the following types of linear voltage regulator places a constant load on the unregulated voltage source?

Select	Answer
A	A series regulator
B	A shunt regulator
C	A constant current source
D	A shunt current source

34. - E7E08

What are the principal frequencies that appear at the output of a mixer circuit?

Select	Answer
A	1.414 and 0.707 times the input frequency
B	Two and four times the original frequency
C	The sum, difference and square root of the input frequencies
D	The two input frequencies along with their sum and difference frequencies

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	Incoming RF is digitized by an analog-to-digital converter without being mixed with a local oscillator signal
C	Incoming RF is converted to a control voltage for a voltage controlled oscillator
D	A switching mixer is used to generate I and Q signals directly from the RF input

36. - E7G08

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

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

37. - E7H14

What is a phase-locked loop circuit?

Select	Answer
A	An electronic servo loop consisting of a phase detector, a low-pass filter, a voltage-controlled oscillator, and a stable reference oscillator
B	An electronic servo loop consisting of a ratio detector, reactance modulator, and voltage-controlled oscillator
C	An electronic circuit also known as a monostable multivibrator
D	An electronic circuit consisting of a precision push-pull amplifier with a differential input

38. - E8A09

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

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

39. - E8B04

What is the modulation index of an FM-phone signal having a maximum carrier deviation of plus or minus 6 kHz when modulated with a 2 kHz modulating frequency?

Select	Answer
A	3
B	6000
C	2000
D	1/3

40. - E8C05

What is the necessary bandwidth of a 13-WPM international Morse code transmission?

Select	Answer
A	Approximately 52 Hz
B	Approximately 26 Hz
C	Approximately 104 Hz
D	Approximately 13 Hz

41. - E8D11

What is one advantage of using ASCII code for data communications?

Select	Answer
A	It contains fewer information bits per character than any other code
B	It includes built in error correction features
C	It is possible to transmit both upper and lower case text
D	It uses one character as a shift code to send numeric and special characters

42. - E9A05

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

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

43. - E9B10

What is the principle of a Method of Moments analysis?

Select	Answer
A	A wire is modeled as a series of segments, each having a uniform value of current
B	A wire is modeled as a single sine-wave current generator
C	A wire is modeled as a series of points, each having a distinct location in space
D	A wire is modeled as a series of segments, each having a distinct value of voltage across it

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

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 resistive wire, such as spark plug wire
C	A wide flat copper strap
D	A single 12 gauge or 10 gauge stainless steel wire

46. - E9E13

What is a use for a Wilkinson divider?

Select	Answer
A	It is used to feed high-impedance antennas from a low-impedance source
B	It is used to feed low-impedance loads from a high-impedance source
C	It is used to divide power equally between two 50 ohm loads while maintaining 50 ohm input impedance
D	It divides the operating frequency of a transmitter signal so it can be used on a lower frequency band

47. - E9F11

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

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

48. - E9G05

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

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

49. - E9H07

Why is it advisable to use an RF attenuator on a receiver being used for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	It reduces loss of received signals caused by antenna pattern nulls, thereby increasing sensitivity
B	It compensates for the effects of an isotropic antenna, thereby improving directivity
C	It narrows the bandwidth of the received signal to improve signal to noise ratio
D	It prevents receiver overload which could make it difficult to determine peaks or nulls

50. - E0A11

Which of the following injuries can result from using high-power UHF or microwave transmitters?

Select	Answer
A	Ingestion of ozone gas from the cooling system
B	Hearing loss caused by high voltage corona discharge
C	Localized heating of the body from RF exposure in excess of the MPE limits
D	Blood clotting from the intense magnetic field

Figure E5-2

Figure E9-3