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

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1. - E1A05

What is the maximum power output permitted on the 60 meter band?

Select	Answer
A	50 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to a dipole
B	100 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to an isotropic radiator
C	50 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to an isotropic radiator
D	100 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to the gain of a half-wave dipole

2. - E1B05

What is the National Radio Quiet Zone?

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

3. - E1C09

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

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

4. - E1D05

What class of licensee is authorized to be the control operator of a space station?

Select	Answer
A	Only Amateur Extra Class
B	All except Technician Class
C	Only General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class
D	Any class with appropriate operator privileges

5. - E1E09

What may be the penalty for a VE who fraudulently administers or certifies an examination?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	A fine of up to $1000 per occurrence
C	A sentence of up to one year in prison
D	Revocation of the VE's amateur station license grant and the suspension of the VE's amateur operator license grant

6. - E1F12

Who may be the control operator of an auxiliary station?

Select	Answer
A	Any licensed amateur operator
B	Only Technician, General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators
C	Only General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators
D	Only Amateur Extra Class operators

7. - E2A07

Which of the following types of signals can be relayed through a linear transponder?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	FM and CW
C	PSK and Packet
D	SSB and SSTV

8. - E2B06

What is vestigial sideband modulation?

Select	Answer
A	A type of modulation in which one sideband is inverted
B	Spread spectrum modulation achieved by applying FM modulation following single sideband amplitude modulation
C	Amplitude modulation in which one complete sideband and a portion of the other are transmitted
D	Narrow-band FM modulation achieved by filtering one sideband from the audio before frequency modulating the carrier

9. - E2C04

What type of transmission is most often used for a ham radio mesh network?

Select	Answer
A	Spread spectrum in the 2.4 GHz band
B	Multiple Frequency Shift Keying in the 10 GHz band
C	Frequency division multiplex in the 24 GHz band
D	Store and forward on the 440 MHz band

10. - E2D05

Which of the following techniques is normally used by low Earth orbiting digital satellites to relay messages around the world?

Select	Answer
A	Digipeating
B	Node hopping
C	Multi-satellite relaying
D	Store-and-forward

11. - E2E12

Which type of control is used by stations using the Automatic Link Enable (ALE) protocol?

Select	Answer
A	Automatic
B	Remote
C	Local
D	ALE can use any type of control

12. - E3A14

From the contiguous 48 states, in which approximate direction should an antenna be pointed to take maximum advantage of aurora propagation?

Select	Answer
A	West
B	East
C	North
D	South

13. - E3B10

What is the cause of gray-line propagation?

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

14. - E3C15

What might a sudden rise in radio background noise indicate?

Select	Answer
A	Increased transequatorial propagation likely
B	A meteor ping
C	A solar flare has occurred
D	Long-path propagation is occurring

15. - E4A08

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

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

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. - E4C17

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

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

18. - E4D02

Which of the following describes two problems caused by poor dynamic range in a communications receiver?

Select	Answer
A	Oscillator instability and severe audio distortion of all but the strongest received signals
B	Cross-modulation of the desired signal and insufficient audio power to operate the speaker
C	Cross-modulation of the desired signal and desensitization from strong adjacent signals
D	Oscillator instability requiring frequent retuning and loss of ability to recover the opposite sideband

19. - E4E08

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

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

20. - E5A05

What is the magnitude of the current at the input of a series RLC circuit as the frequency goes through resonance?

Select	Answer
A	L/R
B	Maximum
C	Minimum
D	R/L

21. - E5B13

What letter is commonly used to represent susceptance?

Select	Answer
A	X
B	B
C	Y
D	G

22. - E5C13

What coordinate system is often used to display the resistive, inductive, and/or capacitive reactance components of impedance?

Select	Answer
A	Faraday grid
B	Maidenhead grid
C	Elliptical coordinates
D	Rectangular coordinates

23. - E5D07

What determines the strength of the magnetic field around a conductor?

Select	Answer
A	The diameter of the conductor
B	The resistance divided by the current
C	The ratio of the current to the resistance
D	The amount of current flowing through the conductor

24. - E6A05

What is the alpha of a bipolar junction transistor?

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

25. - E6B02

What is an important characteristic of a Schottky diode as compared to an ordinary silicon diode when used as a power supply rectifier?

Select	Answer
A	Controlled reverse avalanche voltage
B	Enhanced carrier retention time
C	Less forward voltage drop
D	Much higher reverse voltage breakdown

26. - E6C02

What happens when the level of a comparator's input signal crosses the threshold?

Select	Answer
A	The feedback loop becomes unstable
B	The comparator enters latch-up
C	The comparator changes its output state
D	The IC input can be damaged

27. - E6D17

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

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

28. - E6E07

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

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

29. - E6F10

What is the most common type of photovoltaic cell used for electrical power generation?

Select	Answer
A	Cadmium Sulfide
B	Silicon
C	Selenium
D	Copper oxide

30. - E7A01

Which is a bi-stable circuit?

Select	Answer
A	An "OR" gate
B	A clock
C	An "AND" gate
D	A flip-flop

31. - E7B14

Why are switching amplifiers more efficient than linear amplifiers?

Select	Answer
A	Switching amplifiers operate at higher voltages
B	The power transistor is at saturation or cut off most of the time, resulting in low power dissipation
C	Linear amplifiers have high gain resulting in higher harmonic content
D	Switching amplifiers use push-pull circuits

32. - E7C08

Which of the following factors has the greatest effect in helping determine the bandwidth and response shape of a crystal ladder filter?

Select	Answer
A	The DC voltage applied to the quartz crystal
B	The gain of the RF stage preceding the filter
C	The amplitude of the signals passing through the filter
D	The relative frequencies of the individual crystals

33. - E7D16

When several electrolytic filter capacitors are connected in series to increase the operating voltage of a power supply filter circuit, why should resistors be connected across each capacitor?

Select	Answer
A	To provide a safety bleeder to discharge the capacitors when the supply is off
B	To provide a minimum load current to reduce voltage excursions at light loads
C	All of these choices are correct
D	To equalize, as much as possible, the voltage drop across each capacitor

34. - E7E12

What is a frequency discriminator stage in a FM receiver?

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

35. - E7F17

What do the letters I and Q in I/Q Modulation represent?

Select	Answer
A	In-phase and Quadrature
B	Instantaneous and Quasi-stable
C	Instantaneous and Quenched
D	Inactive and Quiescent

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 gain but increase Q
B	Restrict Q but increase gain
C	Increase both gain and Q
D	Restrict both gain and Q

37. - E7H04

How is positive feedback supplied in a Colpitts oscillator?

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

38. - E8A06

What is the approximate ratio of PEP-to-average power in a typical single-sideband phone signal?

Select	Answer
A	100 to 1
B	25 to 1
C	1 to 1
D	2.5 to 1

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

40. - E8C01

How is Forward Error Correction implemented?

Select	Answer
A	By the receiving station repeating each block of three data characters
B	By varying the frequency shift of the transmitted signal according to a predefined algorithm
C	By transmitting extra data that may be used to detect and correct transmission errors
D	By transmitting a special algorithm to the receiving station along with the data characters

41. - E8D11

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

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

42. - E9A08

What is meant by antenna bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	The angle between the half-power radiation points
B	Antenna length divided by the number of elements
C	The frequency range over which an antenna satisfies a performance requirement
D	The angle formed between two imaginary lines drawn through the element ends

43. - E9B14

What type of information can be obtained by submitting the details of a proposed new antenna to a modeling program?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	SWR vs frequency charts
C	Antenna gain
D	Polar plots of the far field elevation and azimuth patterns

44. - E9C05

What is an OCFD antenna?

Select	Answer
A	An eight band dipole antenna using octophase filters
B	A multiband dipole antenna using one-way circular polarization for frequency diversity
C	A remotely tunable dipole antenna using orthogonally controlled frequency diversity
D	A dipole feed approximately 1/3 the way from one end with a 4:1 balun to provide multiband operation

45. - E9D09

What is the function of a loading coil used as part of an HF mobile antenna?

Select	Answer
A	To increase the SWR bandwidth
B	To cancel capacitive reactance
C	To lower the Q
D	To lower the losses

46. - E9E13

What is a use for a Wilkinson divider?

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

47. - E9F14

What impedance does a 1/2 wavelength transmission line present to a generator when the line is shorted at the far end?

Select	Answer
A	The same as the characteristic impedance of the line
B	The same as the output impedance of the generator
C	Very low impedance
D	Very high impedance

48. - E9G07

On the Smith chart shown in Figure E9-3, what is the only straight line shown?

Select	Answer
A	The reactance axis
B	The current axis
C	The voltage axis
D	The resistance axis

49. - E9H05

What is the main drawback of a wire-loop antenna for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	It is practical for use only on VHF bands
B	It receives equally well in all directions
C	It is non-rotatable
D	It has a bidirectional pattern

50. - E0A05

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

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

Figure E9-3