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

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1. - E1A03

With your transceiver displaying the carrier frequency of phone signals, you hear a station calling CQ on 14.349 MHz USB. Is it legal to return the call using upper sideband on the same frequency?

Select	Answer
A	No, the sideband will extend beyond the band edge
B	Yes, because the displayed frequency is within the 20 meter band
C	Yes, because you were not the station calling CQ
D	No, U.S. stations are not permitted to use phone emissions above 14.340 MHz

2. - E1B05

What is the National Radio Quiet Zone?

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

3. - E1C04

What is meant by IARP?

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

4. - E1D05

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

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

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

6. - E1F10

What is the maximum permitted transmitter peak envelope power for an amateur station transmitting spread spectrum communications?

Select	Answer
A	1.5 kW
B	10 W
C	1.5 W
D	1 W

7. - E2A11

What type of antenna can be used to minimize the effects of spin modulation and Faraday rotation?

Select	Answer
A	A circularly polarized antenna
B	A log-periodic dipole array
C	An isotropic antenna
D	A linearly polarized antenna

8. - E2B03

How is an interlaced scanning pattern generated in a fast-scan (NTSC) television system?

Select	Answer
A	By scanning each field from bottom to top
B	By scanning two fields simultaneously
C	By scanning lines from left to right in one field and right to left in the next
D	By scanning odd numbered lines in one field and even numbered lines in the next

9. - E2C01

Which of the following is true about contest operating?

Select	Answer
A	Operators are permitted to make contacts even if they do not submit a log
B	It is mandatory to transmit the call sign of the station being worked as part of every transmission to that station
C	Every contest requires a signal report in the exchange
D	Interference to other amateurs is unavoidable and therefore acceptable

10. - E2D04

What is the purpose of digital store-and-forward functions on an Amateur Radio satellite?

Select	Answer
A	To relay messages between satellites
B	To upload operational software for the transponder
C	To delay download of telemetry between satellites
D	To store digital messages in the satellite for later download by other stations

11. - E2E11

What is the difference between direct FSK and audio FSK?

Select	Answer
A	Direct FSK applies the data signal to the transmitter VFO
B	Direct FSK uses a DC-coupled data connection
C	Audio FSK can be performed anywhere in the transmit chain
D	Audio FSK has a superior frequency response

12. - E3A01

What is the approximate maximum separation measured along the surface of the Earth between two stations communicating by Moon bounce?

Select	Answer
A	2000 miles, if the Moon is at apogee
B	500 miles, if the Moon is at perigee
C	5000 miles, if the Moon is at perigee
D	12,000 miles, if the Moon is visible by both stations

13. - E3B07

Which of the following could account for hearing an echo on the received signal of a distant station?

Select	Answer
A	Transmit frequency is higher than the MUF
B	High D layer absorption
C	Meteor scatter
D	Receipt of a signal by more than one path

14. - E3C12

How does the maximum distance of ground-wave propagation change when the signal frequency is increased?

Select	Answer
A	It stays the same
B	It decreases
C	It increases
D	It peaks at roughly 14 MHz

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 wattmeter
C	A spectrum analyzer
D	A logic analyzer

16. - E4B14

What happens if a dip meter is too tightly coupled to a tuned circuit being checked?

Select	Answer
A	Harmonics are generated
B	Cross modulation occurs
C	A less accurate reading results
D	Intermodulation distortion occurs

17. - E4C17

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

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

18. - E4D10

What does a third-order intercept level of 40 dBm mean with respect to receiver performance?

Select	Answer
A	A pair of 40 dBm signals will theoretically generate a third-order intermodulation product with the same level as the input signals
B	The receiver can tolerate signals up to 40 dB above the noise floor without producing third-order intermodulation products
C	A pair of 1 mW input signals will produce a third-order intermodulation product which is 40 dB stronger than the input signal
D	Signals less than 40 dBm will not generate audible third-order intermodulation products

19. - E4E03

Which of the following signals might a receiver noise blanker be able to remove from desired signals?

Select	Answer
A	Signals which appear at one IF but not another
B	Signals which have a sharply peaked frequency distribution
C	Signals which are constant at all IF levels
D	Signals which appear across a wide bandwidth

20. - E5A15

Which of the following can increase Q for inductors and capacitors?

Select	Answer
A	Lower self-resonant frequency
B	Higher self-resonant frequency
C	Lower reactance
D	Lower losses

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

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 7
B	Point 3
C	Point 1
D	Point 8

23. - E5D02

Why is it important to keep lead lengths short for components used in circuits for VHF and above?

Select	Answer
A	To avoid unwanted inductive reactance
B	To maintain component lifetime
C	To increase the thermal time constant
D	All of these choices are correct

24. - E6A01

In what application is gallium arsenide used as a semiconductor material in preference to germanium or silicon?

Select	Answer
A	In high-power audio circuits
B	In very low frequency RF circuits
C	In high-current rectifier circuits
D	In microwave circuits

25. - E6B10

In Figure E6-3, what is the schematic symbol for a light-emitting diode?

Select	Answer
A	1
B	6
C	7
D	5

26. - E6C01

What is the function of hysteresis in a comparator?

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

27. - E6D10

What is a primary advantage of using a toroidal core instead of a solenoidal core in an inductor?

Select	Answer
A	Toroidal cores exhibit greater hysteresis
B	Toroidal cores confine most of the magnetic field within the core material
C	Toroidal cores have lower Q characteristics
D	Toroidal cores make it easier to couple the magnetic energy into other components

28. - E6E05

Which of the following noise figure values is typical of a low-noise UHF preamplifier?

Select	Answer
A	-20 dBm
B	-10 dB
C	44 dBm
D	2 dB

29. - E6F02

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

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

30. - E7A07

What logical operation does a NAND gate perform?

Select	Answer
A	It produces logic "0" at its output only when all inputs are logic "0"
B	It produces logic "0" at its output if some but not all inputs are logic "1"
C	It produces logic "0" at its output only when all inputs are logic "1"
D	It produces logic "1" at its output only when all inputs are logic "1"

31. - E7B17

Why are odd-order rather than even-order intermodulation distortion products of concern in linear power amplifiers?

Select	Answer
A	Because they are relatively close in frequency to the desired signal
B	Because they are relatively far in frequency from the desired signal
C	Because they maintain the sidebands, thus causing multiple duplicate signals
D	Because they invert the sidebands causing distortion

32. - E7C14

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

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

33. - E7D09

What is the main reason to use a charge controller with a solar power system?

Select	Answer
A	Prevention of battery undercharge
B	Matching of day and night charge rates
C	Control of electrolyte levels during battery discharge
D	Prevention of battery damage due to overcharge

34. - E7E12

What is a frequency discriminator stage in a FM receiver?

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

35. - E7F03

What type of digital signal processing filter is used to generate an SSB signal?

Select	Answer
A	A Hilbert-transform filter
B	An elliptical filter
C	A notch filter
D	An adaptive filter

36. - E7G07

What magnitude of voltage gain can be expected from the circuit in Figure E7-4 when R1 is 10 ohms and RF is 470 ohms?

Select	Answer
A	47
B	0.21
C	24
D	94

37. - E7H08

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

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

38. - E8A04

What is "dither" with respect to analog to digital converters?

Select	Answer
A	A small amount of noise added to the input signal to allow more precise representation of a signal over time
B	An error caused by irregular quantization step size
C	A method of decimation by randomly skipping samples
D	An abnormal condition where the converter cannot settle on a value to represent the signal

39. - E8B06

What is the deviation ratio of an FM-phone signal having a maximum frequency swing of plus or minus 7.5 kHz when the maximum modulation frequency is 3.5 kHz?

Select	Answer
A	47
B	2.14
C	0.214
D	0.47

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. - E8D01

Why are received spread spectrum signals resistant to interference?

Select	Answer
A	The high power used by a spread spectrum transmitter keeps its signal from being easily overpowered
B	If interference is detected by the receiver it will signal the transmitter to change frequencies
C	Signals not using the spread spectrum algorithm are suppressed in the receiver
D	The receiver is always equipped with a digital blanker

42. - E9A08

What is meant by antenna bandwidth?

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

43. - E9B08

How can the approximate beam-width in a given plane of a directional antenna be determined?

Select	Answer
A	Note the two points where the signal strength of the antenna is 3 dB less than maximum and compute the angular difference
B	Measure the ratio of the signal strengths of the radiated power lobes from the front and rear of the antenna
C	Measure the ratio of the signal strengths of the radiated power lobes from the front and side of the antenna
D	Draw two imaginary lines through the ends of the elements and measure the angle between the lines

44. - E9C04

What happens to the radiation pattern of an unterminated long wire antenna as the wire length is increased?

Select	Answer
A	The lobes align more in the direction of the wire
B	The lobes become more perpendicular to the wire
C	The vertical angle increases
D	The front-to-back ratio decreases

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 lower the losses
C	To cancel capacitive reactance
D	To lower the Q

46. - E9E05

How must the driven element in a 3-element Yagi be tuned to use a hairpin matching system?

Select	Answer
A	The driven element resonance must be lower than the operating frequency
B	The driven element reactance must be inductive
C	The driven element reactance must be capacitive
D	The driven element radiation resistance must be higher than the characteristic impedance of the transmission line

47. - E9F01

What is the velocity factor of a transmission line?

Select	Answer
A	The velocity of the wave in the transmission line multiplied by the velocity of light in a vacuum
B	The ratio of the characteristic impedance of the line to the terminating impedance
C	The index of shielding for coaxial cable
D	The velocity of the wave in the transmission line divided by the velocity of light in a vacuum

48. - E9G11

How are the wavelength scales on a Smith chart calibrated?

Select	Answer
A	In fractions of antenna electrical frequency
B	In fractions of transmission line electrical wavelength
C	In fractions of antenna electrical wavelength
D	In fractions of transmission line electrical frequency

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	Its overall length must not exceed 1/4 wavelength
C	It should be one or more wavelengths long
D	It must be mounted more than 1 wavelength above ground

50. - E0A06

Why are there separate electric (E) and magnetic (H) field MPE limits?

Select	Answer
A	E field and H field radiation intensity peaks can occur at different locations
B	Ground reflections and scattering make the field impedance vary with location
C	The body reacts to electromagnetic radiation from both the E and H fields
D	All of these choices are correct

Figure E5-2

Figure E6-3

Figure E7-4