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	On any frequency where the signal's sidebands are within the channel
D	At the center frequency of the channel

2. - E1B05

What is the National Radio Quiet Zone?

Select	Answer
A	An area in Florida surrounding Cape Canaveral
B	An area surrounding the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
C	An area in New Mexico surrounding the White Sands Test Area
D	An area in Puerto Rico surrounding the Arecibo Radio Telescope

3. - E1C02

What is meant by automatic control of a station?

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

4. - E1D02

What is the amateur satellite service?

Select	Answer
A	A radio communications service using stations on Earth satellites for public service broadcast
B	A spacecraft launching service for amateur-built satellites
C	A radio communications service using amateur radio stations on satellites
D	A radio navigation service using satellites for the purpose of self training, intercommunication and technical studies carried out by amateurs

5. - E1E07

What should a VE do if a candidate fails to comply with the examiner's instructions during an amateur operator license examination?

Select	Answer
A	Immediately terminate the candidate's examination
B	Allow the candidate to complete the examination, but invalidate the results
C	Warn the candidate that continued failure to comply will result in termination of the examination
D	Immediately terminate everyone's examination and close the session

6. - E1F04

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

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

7. - E2A09

What do the terms L band and S band specify with regard to satellite communications?

Select	Answer
A	The 23 centimeter and 13 centimeter bands
B	Which sideband to use
C	FM and Digital Store-and-Forward systems
D	The 2 meter and 70 centimeter bands

8. - E2B07

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

Select	Answer
A	Luminance
B	Spectral Intensity
C	Chroma
D	Hue

9. - E2C05

What is the function of a DX QSL Manager?

Select	Answer
A	To handle the receiving and sending of confirmation cards for a DX station
B	To run a net to allow many stations to contact a rare DX station
C	To relay calls to and from a DX station
D	To allocate frequencies for DXpeditions

10. - E2D08

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

Select	Answer
A	Unnumbered Information
B	Acknowledgement
C	Disconnect
D	Connect

11. - E2E01

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

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

12. - E3A05

Tropospheric propagation of microwave signals often occurs along what weather related structure?

Select	Answer
A	Lightning discharges
B	Gray-line
C	Warm and cold fronts
D	Sprites and jets

13. - E3B12

What is the primary characteristic of chordal hop propagation?

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

14. - E3C06

By how much does the VHF/UHF radio horizon distance exceed the geometric horizon?

Select	Answer
A	By approximately 15 percent of the distance
B	By approximately four times the distance
C	By approximately twice the distance
D	By approximately 50 percent of the distance

15. - E4A08

Which of the following instrument would be best for measuring the SWR of a beam antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A Q meter
B	An ohmmeter
C	An antenna analyzer
D	A spectrum analyzer

16. - E4B01

Which of the following factors most affects the accuracy of a frequency counter?

Select	Answer
A	Input attenuator accuracy
B	Temperature coefficient of the logic
C	Decade divider accuracy
D	Time base accuracy

17. - E4C13

How does a narrow-band roofing filter affect receiver performance?

Select	Answer
A	It improves sensitivity by reducing front end noise
B	It improves intelligibility by using low Q circuitry to reduce ringing
C	It improves dynamic range by attenuating strong signals near the receive frequency
D	All of these choices are correct

18. - E4D12

What is the term for the reduction in receiver sensitivity caused by a strong signal near the received frequency?

Select	Answer
A	Desensitization
B	Cross-modulation interference
C	Quieting
D	Squelch gain rollback

19. - E4E06

What is a major cause of atmospheric static?

Select	Answer
A	Thunderstorms
B	Geomagnetic storms
C	Meteor showers
D	Solar radio frequency emissions

20. - E5A02

What is resonance in an electrical circuit?

Select	Answer
A	The highest frequency that will pass current
B	The frequency at which the capacitive reactance equals the inductive reactance
C	The frequency at which the reactive impedance equals the resistive impedance
D	The lowest frequency that will pass current

21. - E5B08

What is the phase angle between the voltage across and the current through a series RLC circuit if XC is 100 ohms, R is 100 ohms, and XL is 75 ohms?

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

22. - E5C06

What does the impedance 50-j25 represent?

Select	Answer
A	50 ohms resistance in series with 25 ohms capacitive reactance
B	50 ohms resistance in series with 25 ohms inductive reactance
C	25 ohms resistance in series with 50 ohms capacitive reactance
D	25 ohms resistance in series with 50 ohms inductive reactance

23. - E5D14

What is reactive power?

Select	Answer
A	Power consumed in wire resistance in an inductor
B	Wattless, nonproductive power
C	Power consumed in circuit Q
D	Power lost because of capacitor leakage

24. - E6A05

What is the alpha of a bipolar junction transistor?

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

25. - E6B13

What type of bias is required for an LED to emit light?

Select	Answer
A	Inductive bias
B	Zero bias
C	Forward bias
D	Reverse bias

26. - E6C01

What is the function of hysteresis in a comparator?

Select	Answer
A	To prevent input noise from causing unstable output signals
B	To allow the comparator to be used with AC input signal
C	To cause the output to change states continually
D	To increase the sensitivity

27. - E6D15

What is current in the primary winding of a transformer called if no load is attached to the secondary?

Select	Answer
A	Stabilizing current
B	Direct current
C	Excitation current
D	Magnetizing current

28. - E6E04

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

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

29. - E6F08

Why are optoisolators often used in conjunction with solid state circuits when switching 120VAC?

Select	Answer
A	Optoisolators provide impedance matching between the control circuit and power circuit
B	Optoisolators provide a very high degree of electrical isolation between a control circuit and the circuit being switched
C	Optoisolators eliminate the effects of reflected light in the control circuit
D	Optoisolators provide a low impedance link between a control circuit and a power circuit

30. - E7A06

What is a characteristic of a monostable multivibrator?

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

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

32. - E7C14

Which mode is most affected by non-linear phase response in a receiver IF filter?

Select	Answer
A	Single-Sideband voice
B	Digital
C	Video
D	Meteor scatter

33. - E7D11

What circuit element is controlled by a series analog voltage regulator to maintain a constant output voltage?

Select	Answer
A	Pass transistor
B	Reference voltage
C	Switching inductance
D	Error amplifier

34. - E7E12

What is a frequency discriminator stage in a FM receiver?

Select	Answer
A	An automatic band-switching circuit
B	An FM generator circuit
C	A circuit for filtering two closely adjacent signals
D	A circuit for detecting FM signals

35. - E7F10

What aspect of receiver analog-to-digital conversion determines the maximum receive bandwidth of a Direct Digital Conversion SDR?

Select	Answer
A	Sample clock phase noise
B	Sample width in bits
C	Sample rate
D	Processor latency

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 increases linearly with increasing frequency
C	It decreases linearly with increasing frequency
D	It decreases logarithmically with increasing frequency

37. - E7H08

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

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

38. - E8A13

Which of these methods is commonly used to convert analog signals to digital signals?

Select	Answer
A	Phase reversal
B	Sequential sampling
C	Harmonic regeneration
D	Level shifting

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 carrier center frequency to the audio modulating frequency
C	The ratio of the audio modulating frequency to the center carrier frequency
D	The ratio of the maximum carrier frequency deviation to the highest audio modulating frequency

40. - E8C08

How does ARQ accomplish error correction?

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

41. - E8D06

Which of the following indicates likely overmodulation of an AFSK signal such as PSK or MFSK?

Select	Answer
A	High reflected power
B	Strong ALC action
C	Harmonics on higher bands
D	Rapid signal fading

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	78.7 watts
C	1977 watts
D	420 watts

43. - E9B09

What type of computer program technique is commonly used for modeling antennas?

Select	Answer
A	Method of Moments
B	Graphical analysis
C	Mutual impedance analysis
D	Calculus differentiation with respect to physical properties

44. - E9C12

Which of the following describes an extended double Zepp antenna?

Select	Answer
A	An end fed folded dipole antenna
B	A center fed 1.25 wavelength antenna (two 5/8 wave elements in phase)
C	A portable antenna erected using two push support poles
D	A wideband vertical antenna constructed from precisely tapered aluminum tubing

45. - E9D04

Why should an HF mobile antenna loading coil have a high ratio of reactance to resistance?

Select	Answer
A	To minimize the Q
B	To maximize losses
C	To swamp out harmonics
D	To minimize losses

46. - E9E11

What is an effective way of matching a feed line to a VHF or UHF antenna when the impedances of both the antenna and feed line are unknown?

Select	Answer
A	Connect a parallel-resonant LC network across the antenna feed terminals
B	Use the universal stub matching technique
C	Use a 50 ohm 1:1 balun between the antenna and feed line
D	Connect a series-resonant LC network across the antenna feed terminals

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	3.5 meters
B	2.3 meters
C	20 meters
D	0.2 meters

48. - E9G08

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

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

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

50. - E0A03

Which of the following would be a practical way to estimate whether the RF fields produced by an amateur radio station are within permissible MPE limits?

Select	Answer
A	Use a calibrated antenna analyzer
B	All of the choices are correct
C	Use a hand calculator plus Smith-chart equations to calculate the fields
D	Use an antenna modeling program to calculate field strength at accessible locations