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

2. - E1B09

Which amateur stations may be operated under RACES rules?

Select	Answer
A	Any FCC-licensed amateur station except a Technician class
B	Any FCC-licensed amateur station participating in the Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS)
C	Only those club stations licensed to Amateur Extra class operators
D	Any FCC-licensed amateur station certified by the responsible civil defense organization for the area served

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	All of these choices are correct
D	CEPT agreement

4. - E1D08

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

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

5. - E1E03

What is a Volunteer Examiner Coordinator?

Select	Answer
A	A person who has volunteered to administer amateur operator license examinations
B	A person who has volunteered to prepare amateur operator license examinations
C	The person who has entered into an agreement with the FCC to be the VE session manager
D	An organization that has entered into an agreement with the FCC to coordinate amateur operator license examinations

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 produce full legal output when driven by not more than 5 watts of mean RF input power
C	It must be capable of external RF switching between its input and output networks
D	It must satisfy the FCC's spurious emission standards when operated at the lesser of 1500 watts or its full output power

7. - E2A13

What type of satellite appears to stay in one position in the sky?

Select	Answer
A	LEO
B	Geostationary
C	HEO
D	Geomagnetic

8. - E2B07

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

Select	Answer
A	Luminance
B	Hue
C	Spectral Intensity
D	Chroma

9. - E2C10

Why might a DX station state that they are listening on another frequency?

Select	Answer
A	Because the DX station may be transmitting on a frequency that is prohibited to some responding stations
B	All of these choices are correct
C	To improve operating efficiency by reducing interference
D	To separate the calling stations from the DX station

10. - E2D13

What type of modulation is used for JT65 contacts?

Select	Answer
A	Multi-tone AFSK
B	PSK
C	RTTY
D	IEEE 802.11

11. - E2E12

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

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

12. - E3A03

When scheduling EME contacts, which of these conditions will generally result in the least path loss?

Select	Answer
A	When the Moon is at perigee
B	When the Moon is full
C	When the MUF is above 30 MHz
D	When the Moon is at apogee

13. - E3B03

What is the best time of day for transequatorial propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Afternoon or early evening
B	Noon
C	Late at night
D	Morning

14. - E3C04

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

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

15. - E4A05

What might be an advantage of a digital vs an analog oscilloscope?

Select	Answer
A	Manipulation of time base after trace capture
B	Automatic amplitude and frequency numerical readout
C	All of these choices are correct
D	Storage of traces for future reference

16. - E4B03

If a frequency counter with a specified accuracy of +/- 1.0 ppm reads 146,520,000 Hz, what is the most the actual frequency being measured could differ from the reading?

Select	Answer
A	165.2 Hz
B	1.4652 MHz
C	14.652 kHz
D	146.52 Hz

17. - E4C16

Which of the following is caused by missing codes in an SDR receiver's analog-to-digital converter?

Select	Answer
A	Distortion
B	Excess output level
C	Overload
D	Loss of sensitivity

18. - E4D14

Which of the following is a way to reduce the likelihood of receiver desensitization?

Select	Answer
A	Switch from fast AGC to slow AGC
B	Increase the receiver front end gain
C	Decrease the RF bandwidth of the receiver
D	Raise the receiver IF frequency

19. - E4E01

Which of the following types of receiver noise can often be reduced by use of a receiver noise blanker?

Select	Answer
A	Broadband white noise
B	Ignition noise
C	Heterodyne interference
D	All of these choices are correct

20. - E5A03

What is the magnitude of the impedance of a series RLC circuit at resonance?

Select	Answer
A	Approximately equal to inductive reactance
B	Approximately equal to capacitive reactance
C	Approximately equal to circuit resistance
D	High, as compared to the circuit resistance

21. - E5B02

What is the term for the time it takes for a charged capacitor in an RC circuit to discharge to 36.8% of its initial voltage?

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

22. - E5C04

Which of the following represents a capacitive reactance in polar coordinates?

Select	Answer
A	A positive phase angle
B	A negative phase angle
C	A positive real part
D	A negative real part

23. - E5D07

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

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

24. - E6A06

What is the beta of a bipolar junction transistor?

Select	Answer
A	The breakdown voltage of the base to collector junction
B	The frequency at which the current gain is reduced to 1
C	The switching speed of the transistor
D	The change in collector current with respect to base current

25. - E6B07

What is the failure mechanism when a junction diode fails due to excessive current?

Select	Answer
A	Excessive junction temperature
B	Charge carrier depletion
C	Excessive inverse voltage
D	Insufficient forward voltage

26. - E6C09

What is a Programmable Logic Device (PLD)?

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

27. - E6D09

What devices are commonly used as VHF and UHF parasitic suppressors at the input and output terminals of a transistor HF amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	Butterworth filters
B	Ferrite beads
C	Electrolytic capacitors
D	Steel-core toroids

28. - E6E11

What is a characteristic of DIP packaging used for integrated circuits?

Select	Answer
A	A total of two rows of connecting pins placed on opposite sides of the package (Dual In-line Package)
B	Package mounts in a direct inverted position
C	Low leakage doubly insulated package
D	Two chips in each package (Dual In Package)

29. - E6F02

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

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

30. - E7A06

What is a characteristic of a monostable multivibrator?

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

31. - E7B11

In Figure E7-1, what is the purpose of R3?

Select	Answer
A	Output load resistor
B	Fixed bias
C	Emitter bypass
D	Self bias

32. - E7C09

What is a Jones filter as used as part of an HF receiver IF stage?

Select	Answer
A	A variable bandwidth crystal lattice filter
B	An automatic notch filter
C	A filter that removes impulse noise E7C10 (B) Which of the following filters would be the best choice for use in a 2 meter repeater duplexer? A. A crystal filter B. A cavity filter C. A DSP filter D. An L-C filter
D	A special filter that emphasizes image responses

33. - E7D06

What is the purpose of Q1 in the circuit shown in Figure E7-3?

Select	Answer
A	It provides D1 with current
B	It provides negative feedback to improve regulation
C	It provides a constant load for the voltage source
D	It increases the current-handling capability of the regulator

34. - E7E10

How does a diode detector function?

Select	Answer
A	By mixing signals with noise in the transition region of the diode
B	By breakdown of the Zener voltage
C	By sensing the change of reactance in the diode with respect to frequency
D	By rectification and filtering of RF signals

35. - E7F08

What is the function of decimation with regard to digital filters?

Select	Answer
A	Converting data to binary code decimal form
B	Removing unnecessary significant digits
C	Attenuating the signal
D	Reducing the effective sample rate by removing samples

36. - E7G03

What is the typical input impedance of an integrated circuit op-amp?

Select	Answer
A	Very high
B	100 ohms
C	Very low
D	1000 ohms

37. - E7H05

How is positive feedback supplied in a Pierce oscillator?

Select	Answer
A	Through a quartz crystal
B	Through link coupling
C	Through a tapped coil
D	Through a neutralizing capacitor

38. - E8A01

What is the name of the process that shows that a square wave is made up of a sine wave plus all of its odd harmonics?

Select	Answer
A	Vector analysis
B	Numerical analysis
C	Differential analysis
D	Fourier analysis

39. - E8B09

What is meant by deviation ratio?

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

41. - E8D11

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

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

42. - E9A18

What term describes station output, taking into account all gains and losses?

Select	Answer
A	Half-power bandwidth
B	Apparent power
C	Power factor
D	Effective radiated power

43. - E9B03

In the antenna radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-1, what is the front-to-side ratio?

Select	Answer
A	18 dB
B	14 dB
C	24 dB
D	12 dB

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

45. - E9D04

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

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

46. - E9E01

What system matches a higher impedance transmission line to a lower impedance antenna by connecting the line to the driven element in two places spaced a fraction of a wavelength each side of element center?

Select	Answer
A	The omega matching system
B	The stub matching system
C	The gamma matching system
D	The delta matching system

47. - E9F13

What impedance does a 1/4 wavelength transmission line present to a generator when the line is shorted at the far end?

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

48. - E9G02

What type of coordinate system is used in a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Resistance circles and reactance arcs
B	Voltage lines and current chords
C	Voltage circles and current arcs
D	Resistance lines and reactance chords

49. - E9H11

What characteristic of a cardioid pattern antenna is useful for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	A very sharp single null
B	High-radiation angle
C	Broad band response
D	A very sharp peak

50. - E0A07

How may dangerous levels of carbon monoxide from an emergency generator be detected?

Select	Answer
A	By the odor
B	By the yellowish appearance of the gas
C	Only with a carbon monoxide detector
D	Any ordinary smoke detector can be used

Figure E7-1

Figure E7-3

Figure E9-1