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

Logging in (or registering) will help the system to select questions that you need to focus on.

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

2. - E1B03

Within what distance must an amateur station protect an FCC monitoring facility from harmful interference?

Select	Answer
A	1 mile
B	10 miles
C	3 miles
D	30 miles

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	CEPT agreement
B	ITU reciprocal license
C	IARP agreement
D	All of these choices are correct

4. - E1D06

Which of the following is a requirement of a space station?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	The space station must cease all transmissions after 5 years
C	The space station must be capable of changing its orbit whenever such a change is ordered by NASA
D	The space station must be capable of terminating transmissions by telecommand when directed by the FCC

5. - E1E11

What must the VE team do if an examinee scores a passing grade on all examination elements needed for an upgrade or new license?

Select	Answer
A	Three VEs must certify that the examinee is qualified for the license grant and that they have complied with the administering VE requirements
B	Photocopy all examination documents and forward them to the FCC for processing
C	Issue the examinee the new or upgrade license
D	All these choices are correct

6. - E1F10

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

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

7. - E2A14

What technology is used to track, in real time, balloons carrying amateur radio transmitters?

Select	Answer
A	APRS
B	Doppler shift of beacon signals
C	Radar
D	Bandwidth compressed LORAN

8. - E2B10

Which of the following is an acceptable bandwidth for Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) based voice or SSTV digital transmissions made on the HF amateur bands?

Select	Answer
A	20 KHz
B	15 KHz
C	3 KHz
D	10 KHz

9. - E2C01

Which of the following is true about contest operating?

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

10. - E2D03

Which of the following digital modes is especially useful for EME communications?

Select	Answer
A	PACTOR III
B	Olivia
C	JT65
D	FSK441

11. - E2E02

What do the letters FEC mean as they relate to digital operation?

Select	Answer
A	Final Error Correction
B	First Error Correction
C	Forward Error Correction
D	Fatal Error Correction

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

13. - E3B12

What is the primary characteristic of chordal hop propagation?

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

14. - E3C13

What type of polarization is best for ground-wave propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Elliptical
B	Circular
C	Vertical
D	Horizontal

15. - E4A11

Which of the following is good practice when using an oscilloscope probe?

Select	Answer
A	Never use a DC-coupled probe to measure an AC circuit
B	All of these choices are correct
C	Keep the signal ground connection of the probe as short as possible
D	Never use a high impedance probe to measure a low impedance circuit

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	10 Hz
C	146.52 Hz
D	146.52 kHz

17. - E4C01

What is an effect of excessive phase noise in the local oscillator section of a receiver?

Select	Answer
A	It decreases receiver third-order intermodulation distortion dynamic range
B	It reduces receiver sensitivity
C	It can cause strong signals on nearby frequencies to interfere with reception of weak signals
D	It limits the receiver's ability to receive strong signals

18. - E4D13

Which of the following can cause receiver desensitization?

Select	Answer
A	Strong adjacent channel signals
B	Audio bias adjusted too high
C	Audio gain adjusted too low
D	Squelch gain misadjusted

19. - E4E05

How can noise from an electric motor be suppressed?

Select	Answer
A	By installing a brute-force AC-line filter in series with the motor leads
B	By installing a high pass filter in series with the motor's power leads
C	By installing a bypass capacitor in series with the motor leads
D	By using a ground-fault current interrupter in the circuit used to power the motor

20. - E5A07

What is the magnitude of the current at the input of a parallel RLC circuit at resonance?

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

21. - E5B06

What is susceptance?

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

22. - E5C04

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

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

23. - E5D01

What is the result of skin effect?

Select	Answer
A	As frequency increases, RF current flows in a thinner layer of the conductor, closer to the surface
B	Thermal effects on the surface of the conductor decrease the impedance
C	As frequency decreases, RF current flows in a thinner layer of the conductor, closer to the surface
D	Thermal effects on the surface of the conductor increase the impedance

24. - E6A04

What is the name given to an impurity atom that adds holes to a semiconductor crystal structure?

Select	Answer
A	Donor impurity
B	N-type impurity
C	Insulator impurity
D	Acceptor impurity

25. - E6B09

What is a common use for point contact diodes?

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

26. - E6C12

What is BiCMOS logic?

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

27. - E6D08

What is one reason for using powdered-iron cores rather than ferrite cores in an inductor?

Select	Answer
A	Powdered-iron cores generally have greater initial permeability
B	Powdered-iron cores generally maintain their characteristics at higher currents
C	Powdered-iron cores generally require fewer turns to produce a given inductance
D	Powdered-iron cores use smaller diameter wire for the same inductance

28. - E6E12

Why are high-power RF amplifier ICs and transistors sometimes mounted in ceramic packages?

Select	Answer
A	To provide a low-pass frequency response
B	Better dissipation of heat
C	Enhanced sensitivity to light
D	High-voltage insulating ability

29. - E6F02

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

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

30. - E7A06

What is a characteristic of a monostable multivibrator?

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

31. - E7B04

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

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

32. - E7C06

What are the distinguishing features of an elliptical filter?

Select	Answer
A	Gradual passband rolloff with extreme stop band ripple
B	Extremely sharp cutoff with one or more notches in the stop band
C	Extremely flat response over its pass band with gradually rounded stop band corners
D	Gradual passband rolloff with minimal stop band ripple

33. - E7D02

What is one characteristic of a switching electronic voltage regulator?

Select	Answer
A	The resistance of a control element is varied in direct proportion to the line voltage or load current
B	It is generally less efficient than a linear regulator
C	It gives a ramp voltage at its output
D	The controlled device's duty cycle is changed to produce a constant average output voltage

34. - E7E09

What occurs when an excessive amount of signal energy reaches a mixer circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Automatic limiting occurs
B	A beat frequency is generated
C	Spurious mixer products are generated
D	Mixer blanking occurs

35. - E7F08

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

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

36. - E7G06

Which of the following is the most appropriate use of an op-amp active filter?

Select	Answer
A	For smoothing power supply output
B	As an audio filter in a receiver
C	As a high-pass filter used to block RFI at the input to receivers
D	As a low-pass filter used between a transmitter and a transmission line

37. - E7H08

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

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

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	A method of decimation by randomly skipping samples
C	An abnormal condition where the converter cannot settle on a value to represent the signal
D	An error caused by irregular quantization step size

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

41. - E8D04

What is the primary effect of extremely short rise or fall time on a CW signal?

Select	Answer
A	Limits data speed
B	More difficult to copy
C	The generation of key clicks
D	The generation of RF harmonics

42. - E9A16

What is the effective radiated power relative to a dipole of a repeater station with 200 watts transmitter power output, 4 dB feed line loss, 3.2 dB duplexer loss, 0.8 dB circulator loss, and 10 dBd antenna gain?

Select	Answer
A	317 watts
B	300 watts
C	126 watts
D	2000 watts

43. - E9B16

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

Select	Answer
A	7
B	1
C	3
D	4

44. - E9C05

What is an OCFD antenna?

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

45. - E9D11

Which of the following types of conductors would be best for minimizing losses in a station's RF ground system?

Select	Answer
A	A cable with six or seven 18 gauge conductors in parallel
B	A wide flat copper strap
C	A resistive wire, such as spark plug wire
D	A single 12 gauge or 10 gauge stainless steel wire

46. - E9E09

Which of these matching systems is an effective method of connecting a 50 ohm coaxial cable feed line to a grounded tower so it can be used as a vertical antenna?

Select	Answer
A	Hairpin match
B	All of these choices are correct
C	Gamma match
D	Double-bazooka match

47. - E9F12

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

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

48. - E9G05

What type of chart is shown in Figure E9-3?

Select	Answer
A	Elevation angle radiation pattern chart
B	Azimuth angle radiation pattern chart
C	Smith chart
D	Free space radiation directivity chart

49. - E9H04

What is an advantage of using a shielded loop antenna for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	It automatically cancels ignition noise in mobile installations
B	It is electro statically balanced against ground, giving better nulls
C	It allows stations to communicate without giving away their position
D	It eliminates tracking errors caused by strong out-of-band signals

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

Figure E9-2

Figure E9-3