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

2. - E1B08

What limitations may the FCC place on an amateur station if its signal causes interference to domestic broadcast reception, assuming that the receivers involved are of good engineering design?

Select	Answer
A	The amateur station must cease operation on all frequencies above 30 MHz
B	The amateur station must cease operation on all frequencies below 30 MHz
C	The amateur station must avoid transmitting during certain hours on frequencies that cause the interference
D	The amateur station must cease operation

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

4. - E1D01

What is the definition of the term telemetry?

Select	Answer
A	One-way transmission that initiates, modifies, or terminates the functions of a device at a distance
B	Two-way radiotelephone transmissions in excess of 1000 feet
C	Two-way single channel transmissions of data
D	One-way transmission of measurements at a distance from the measuring instrument

5. - E1E04

Which of the following best describes the Volunteer Examiner accreditation process?

Select	Answer
A	Each General, Advanced and Amateur Extra Class operator is automatically accredited as a VE when the license is granted
B	The amateur operator applying must pass a VE examination administered by the FCC Enforcement Bureau
C	The prospective VE obtains accreditation from the FCC
D	The procedure by which a VEC confirms that the VE applicant meets FCC requirements to serve as an examiner

6. - E1F05

Amateur stations may not transmit in which of the following frequency segments if they are located in the contiguous 48 states and north of Line A?

Select	Answer
A	420 MHz - 430 MHz
B	440 MHz - 450 MHz
C	53 MHz - 54 MHz
D	222 MHz - 223 MHz

7. - E2A08

Why should effective radiated power to a satellite which uses a linear transponder be limited?

Select	Answer
A	To avoid reducing the downlink power to all other users
B	To prevent creating errors in the satellite telemetry
C	To avoid interfering with terrestrial QSOs
D	To prevent the satellite from emitting out-of-band signals

8. - E2B07

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

Select	Answer
A	Chroma
B	Luminance
C	Hue
D	Spectral Intensity

9. - E2C07

What is the Cabrillo format?

Select	Answer
A	The rules of order for meetings between contest sponsors
B	A standard for submission of electronic contest logs
C	A method of exchanging information during a contest QSO
D	The most common set of contest rules

10. - E2D07

What digital protocol is used by APRS?

Select	Answer
A	AX.25
B	AMTOR
C	PACTOR
D	802.11

11. - E2E04

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

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

12. - E3A10

Which type of atmospheric structure can create a path for microwave propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Temperature inversion
B	Wind shear
C	Dust devil
D	The jet stream

13. - E3B04

What is meant by the terms extraordinary and ordinary waves?

Select	Answer
A	Extraordinary waves describe rare long skip propagation compared to ordinary waves which travel shorter distances
B	Independent waves created in the ionosphere that are elliptically polarized
C	Refracted rays and reflected waves
D	Long path and short path waves

14. - E3C07

Which of the following descriptors indicates the greatest solar flare intensity?

Select	Answer
A	Class X
B	Class A
C	Class B
D	Class M

15. - E4A07

Which of the following is an advantage of using an antenna analyzer compared to an SWR bridge to measure antenna SWR?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	Antenna analyzers display a time-varying representation of the modulation envelope
C	Antenna analyzers automatically tune your antenna for resonance
D	Antenna analyzers do not need an external RF source

16. - E4B09

What is indicated if the current reading on an RF ammeter placed in series with the antenna feed line of a transmitter increases as the transmitter is tuned to resonance?

Select	Answer
A	There is possibly a short to ground in the feed line
B	There is an impedance mismatch between the antenna and feed line
C	The transmitter is not properly neutralized
D	There is more power going into the antenna

17. - E4C12

What is an undesirable effect of using too wide a filter bandwidth in the IF section of a receiver?

Select	Answer
A	Filter ringing
B	Thermal-noise distortion
C	Output-offset overshoot
D	Undesired signals may be heard

18. - E4D01

What is meant by the blocking dynamic range of a receiver?

Select	Answer
A	The difference in dB between the noise floor and the third order intercept point
B	The minimum difference in dB between the levels of two FM signals which will cause one signal to block the other
C	The difference in dB between the noise floor and the level of an incoming signal which will cause 1 dB of gain compression
D	The minimum difference in dB between two signals which produce third order intermodulation products greater than the noise floor

19. - E4E01

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

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

20. - E5A14

What is the resonant frequency of a series RLC circuit if R is 22 ohms, L is 50 microhenrys and C is 40 picofarads?

Select	Answer
A	22.36 MHz
B	44.72 MHz
C	1.78 MHz
D	3.56 MHz

21. - E5B06

What is susceptance?

Select	Answer
A	The ratio of magnetic field to electric field
B	A measure of the efficiency of a transformer
C	The inverse of reactance
D	The magnetic impedance of a circuit

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 1
C	Point 3
D	Point 8

23. - E5D10

How can the true power be determined in an AC circuit where the voltage and current are out of phase?

Select	Answer
A	By dividing the reactive power by the power factor
B	By multiplying the reactive power times the power factor
C	By dividing the apparent power by the power factor
D	By multiplying the apparent power times the power factor

24. - E6A10

In Figure E6-2, what is the schematic symbol for an N-channel dual-gate MOSFET?

Select	Answer
A	4
B	5
C	6
D	2

25. - E6B12

What is one common use for PIN diodes?

Select	Answer
A	As a high voltage rectifier
B	As a constant voltage source
C	As a constant current source
D	As an RF switch

26. - E6C12

What is BiCMOS logic?

Select	Answer
A	An integrated circuit logic family using both bipolar and CMOS transistors
B	A logic device with two CMOS circuits per package
C	A logic family based on bismuth CMOS devices
D	A FET logic family based on bimetallic semiconductors

27. - E6D13

What is the primary cause of inductor self-resonance?

Select	Answer
A	Inter-turn capacitance
B	Inductive kickback
C	Non-linear core hysteresis
D	The skin effect

28. - E6E08

How is voltage from a power supply normally furnished to the most common type of monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC)?

Select	Answer
A	Through a resistor and/or RF choke connected to the amplifier output lead
B	Through a capacitor and RF choke connected to the amplifier input lead
C	MMICs require no operating bias
D	Directly to the bias voltage (VCC IN) lead

29. - E6F09

What is the efficiency of a photovoltaic cell?

Select	Answer
A	The output RF power divided by the input DC power
B	The effective payback period
C	The relative fraction of light that is converted to current
D	The open-circuit voltage divided by the short-circuit current under full illumination

30. - E7A02

What is the function of a decade counter digital IC?

Select	Answer
A	It decodes a decimal number for display on a seven segment LED display
B	It adds two decimal numbers together
C	It produces one output pulse for every ten input pulses
D	It produces ten output pulses for every input pulse

31. - E7B04

Where on the load line of a Class A common emitter amplifier would bias normally be set?

Select	Answer
A	Approximately half-way between saturation and cutoff
B	At a point where the load line intersects the zero bias current curve
C	Where the load line intersects the voltage axis
D	At a point where the bias resistor equals the load resistor

32. - E7C02

Which of the following is a property of a T-network with series capacitors and a parallel shunt inductor?

Select	Answer
A	It is a high-pass filter
B	It is a low-pass filter
C	It is a band-pass filter
D	It is a notch filter

33. - E7D07

What is the purpose of C2 in the circuit shown in Figure E7-3?

Select	Answer
A	To self-resonate at the hum frequency
B	It bypasses hum around D1
C	It is a brute force filter for the output
D	To provide fixed DC bias for Q1

34. - E7E06

Why is de-emphasis commonly used in FM communications receivers?

Select	Answer
A	For higher efficiency
B	For compatibility with transmitters using phase modulation
C	To remove third-order distortion products
D	To reduce impulse noise reception

35. - E7F04

What is a common method of generating an SSB signal using digital signal processing?

Select	Answer
A	A frequency synthesizer removes the unwanted sidebands
B	Mixing products are converted to voltages and subtracted by adder circuits
C	Emulation of quartz crystal filter characteristics
D	Combine signals with a quadrature phase relationship

36. - E7G10

What absolute voltage gain can be expected from the circuit in Figure E7-4 when R1 is 1800 ohms and RF is 68 kilohms?

Select	Answer
A	76
B	0.03
C	1
D	38

37. - E7H14

What is a phase-locked loop circuit?

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

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	Level shifting
D	Harmonic regeneration

39. - E8B05

What is the deviation ratio of an FM-phone signal having a maximum frequency swing of plus-or-minus 5 kHz when the maximum modulation frequency is 3 kHz?

Select	Answer
A	1.67
B	60
C	0.6
D	0.167

40. - E8C03

When performing phase shift keying, why is it advantageous to shift phase precisely at the zero crossing of the RF carrier?

Select	Answer
A	It improves carrier suppression
B	It is easier to demodulate with a conventional, non-synchronous detector
C	This results in the least possible transmitted bandwidth for the particular mode
D	All of these choices are correct

41. - E8D03

How does the spread spectrum technique of frequency hopping work?

Select	Answer
A	If interference is detected by the receiver it will signal the transmitter to change frequencies
B	If interference is detected by the receiver it will signal the transmitter to wait until the frequency is clear
C	A pseudo-random binary bit stream is used to shift the phase of an RF carrier very rapidly in a particular sequence
D	The frequency of the transmitted signal is changed very rapidly according to a particular sequence also used by the receiving station

42. - E9A13

How much gain does an antenna have compared to a 1/2-wavelength dipole when it has 12 dB gain over an isotropic antenna?

Select	Answer
A	12.5 dB
B	14.15 dB
C	9.85 dB
D	6.17 dB

43. - E9B16

How many elevation lobes appear in the forward direction of the antenna radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-2?

Select	Answer
A	4
B	3
C	1
D	7

44. - E9C08

What is a folded dipole antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A type of ground-plane antenna
B	A dipole configured to provide forward gain
C	A dipole one-quarter wavelength long
D	A dipole consisting of one wavelength of wire forming a very thin loop

45. - E9D08

What happens as the Q of an antenna increases?

Select	Answer
A	More common-mode current is present on the feed line
B	SWR bandwidth increases
C	SWR bandwidth decreases
D	Gain is reduced

46. - E9E12

What is the primary purpose of a phasing line when used with an antenna having multiple driven elements?

Select	Answer
A	It makes sure the antenna has a low-angle radiation pattern
B	It ensures that each driven element operates in concert with the others to create the desired antenna pattern
C	It allows single-band antennas to operate on other bands
D	It prevents reflected power from traveling back down the feed line and causing harmonic radiation from the transmitter

47. - E9F08

What is the term for the ratio of the actual speed at which a signal travels through a transmission line to the speed of light in a vacuum?

Select	Answer
A	Characteristic impedance
B	Velocity factor
C	Standing wave ratio
D	Surge impedance

48. - E9G09

What third family of circles is often added to a Smith chart during the process of solving problems?

Select	Answer
A	Radiation-pattern circles
B	Antenna-length circles
C	Standing wave ratio circles
D	Coaxial-length circles

49. - E9H11

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

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

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

Figure E5-2

Figure E6-2

Figure E7-3

Figure E7-4

Figure E9-2