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

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1. - E1A10

If an amateur station is installed aboard a ship or aircraft, what condition must be met before the station is operated?

Select	Answer
A	Its operation must be approved by the master of the ship or the pilot in command of the aircraft
B	The amateur operator must have an FCC Marine or Aircraft endorsement on his or her amateur license
C	The amateur station must have a power supply that is completely independent of the main ship or aircraft power supply
D	The amateur station operator must agree not to transmit when the main radio of the ship or aircraft is in use

2. - E1B09

Which amateur stations may be operated under RACES rules?

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

3. - E1C10

What types of amateur stations may automatically retransmit the radio signals of other amateur stations?

Select	Answer
A	Only beacon, repeater or space stations
B	Only earth stations, repeater stations or model craft
C	Only auxiliary, beacon or space stations
D	Only auxiliary, repeater or space stations

4. - E1D08

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

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

5. - E1E02

Where are the questions for all written U.S. amateur license examinations listed?

Select	Answer
A	In a question pool maintained by the FCC
B	In FCC Part 97
C	In a question pool maintained by all the VECs
D	In the appropriate FCC Report and Order

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 satisfy the FCC's spurious emission standards when operated at the lesser of 1500 watts or its full output power
D	It must be capable of external RF switching between its input and output networks

7. - E2A13

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

Select	Answer
A	HEO
B	LEO
C	Geostationary
D	Geomagnetic

8. - E2B06

What is vestigial sideband modulation?

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

9. - E2C04

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

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

10. - E2D04

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

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

11. - E2E10

Which of these digital modes has the narrowest bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	MFSK16
B	300-baud packet
C	PSK31
D	170 Hz shift, 45 baud RTTY

12. - E3A15

What is an electromagnetic wave?

Select	Answer
A	A wave consisting of two magnetic fields at right angles to each other
B	A wave consisting of an electric field and a magnetic field oscillating at right angles to each other
C	A wave of alternating current, in the core of an electromagnet
D	A wave consisting of two electric fields at parallel right angles to each other

13. - E3B08

What type of HF propagation is probably occurring if radio signals travel along the terminator between daylight and darkness?

Select	Answer
A	Long-path
B	Transequatorial
C	Gray-line
D	Sporadic-E

14. - E3C14

Why does the radio-path horizon distance exceed the geometric horizon?

Select	Answer
A	E-region skip
B	Downward bending due to density variations in the atmosphere
C	Downward bending due to aurora refraction
D	D-region skip

15. - E4A10

Which of the following displays multiple digital signal states simultaneously?

Select	Answer
A	Bit error rate tester
B	Modulation monitor
C	Network analyzer
D	Logic analyzer

16. - E4B02

What is an advantage of using a bridge circuit to measure impedance?

Select	Answer
A	It provides an excellent match under all conditions
B	It is relatively immune to drift in the signal generator source
C	It can display results directly in Smith chart format
D	It is very precise in obtaining a signal null

17. - E4C17

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

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

18. - E4D09

What is the purpose of the preselector in a communications receiver?

Select	Answer
A	To allow selection of the optimum RF amplifier device
B	To provide a range of AGC time constants
C	To increase rejection of unwanted signals
D	To store often-used frequencies

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 using a ground-fault current interrupter in the circuit used to power the motor
D	By installing a bypass capacitor in series with the motor leads

20. - E5A09

How is the Q of an RLC parallel resonant circuit calculated?

Select	Answer
A	Reactance of either the inductance or capacitance divided by the resistance
B	Reactance of the inductance multiplied by the reactance of the capacitance
C	Reactance of either the inductance or capacitance multiplied by the resistance
D	Resistance divided by the reactance of either the inductance or capacitance

21. - E5B05

What happens to the magnitude of a reactance when it is converted to a susceptance?

Select	Answer
A	The magnitude of the susceptance is the reciprocal of the magnitude of the reactance
B	It is unchanged
C	The sign is reversed
D	It is shifted by 90 degrees

22. - E5C01

Which of the following represents a capacitive reactance in rectangular notation?

Select	Answer
A	Omega
B	+jX
C	X
D	-jX

23. - E5D11

What is the power factor of an R-L circuit having a 60 degree phase angle between the voltage and the current?

Select	Answer
A	1.414
B	1.73
C	0.5
D	0.866

24. - E6A08

What term indicates the frequency at which the grounded-base current gain of a transistor has decreased to 0.7 of the gain obtainable at 1 kHz?

Select	Answer
A	Alpha rejection frequency
B	Alpha cutoff frequency
C	Beta cutoff frequency
D	Corner frequency

25. - E6B07

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

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

26. - E6C07

What best describes a pull-up or pull-down resistor?

Select	Answer
A	A resistor connected to the positive or negative supply line used to establish a voltage when an input or output is an open circuit
B	A resistor in a keying circuit used to reduce key clicks
C	A resistor that insures that an oscillator frequency does not drive lower over time
D	A resistor connected to an op-amp output that only functions when the logic output is false

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

28. - E6E02

Which of the following device packages is a through-hole type?

Select	Answer
A	Ball grid array
B	PLCC
C	DIP
D	SOT

29. - E6F01

What is photoconductivity?

Select	Answer
A	The conversion of photon energy to electromotive energy
B	The decreased conductivity of an illuminated semiconductor
C	The conversion of electromotive energy to photon energy
D	The increased conductivity of an illuminated semiconductor

30. - E7A09

What logical operation is performed by an exclusive NOR gate?

Select	Answer
A	It produces logic "0" at its output only if all inputs are logic "0"
B	It produces logic "1" at its output only if all inputs are logic "1"
C	It produces logic "0" at its output if any single input is logic "1"
D	It produces logic "1" at its output if any single input is logic "1"

31. - E7B07

Which of the following is a likely result when a Class C amplifier is used to amplify a single-sideband phone signal?

Select	Answer
A	Reduced intermodulation products
B	Signal inversion
C	Increased overall intelligibility
D	Signal distortion and excessive bandwidth

32. - E7C05

Which filter type is described as having ripple in the passband and a sharp cutoff?

Select	Answer
A	A passive op-amp filter
B	A Butterworth filter
C	A Chebyshev filter
D	An active LC filter

33. - E7D15

What is the purpose of a "step-start" circuit in a high voltage power supply?

Select	Answer
A	To compensate for variations of the incoming line voltage
B	To provide a dual-voltage output for reduced power applications
C	To allow the filter capacitors to charge gradually
D	To allow for remote control of the power supply

34. - E7E08

What are the principal frequencies that appear at the output of a mixer circuit?

Select	Answer
A	The sum, difference and square root of the input frequencies
B	Two and four times the original frequency
C	The two input frequencies along with their sum and difference frequencies
D	1.414 and 0.707 times the input frequency

35. - E7F17

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

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

36. - E7G08

How does the gain of an ideal operational amplifier vary with frequency?

Select	Answer
A	It increases linearly with increasing frequency
B	It decreases logarithmically with increasing frequency
C	It decreases linearly with increasing frequency
D	It does not vary with frequency

37. - E7H04

How is positive feedback supplied in a Colpitts oscillator?

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

38. - E8A05

What would be the most accurate way of measuring the RMS voltage of a complex waveform?

Select	Answer
A	By measuring the voltage with a D'Arsonval meter
B	By using an absorption wave meter
C	By using a grid dip meter
D	By measuring the heating effect in a known resistor

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	60
B	1.67
C	0.6
D	0.167

40. - E8C10

What is an advantage of Gray code in digital communications where symbols are transmitted as multiple bits

Select	Answer
A	It facilitates error detection
B	It has more possible states than simple binary
C	It has more resolution than simple binary
D	It increases security

41. - E8D01

Why are received spread spectrum signals resistant to interference?

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

42. - E9A10

Which of the following choices is a way to improve the efficiency of a ground-mounted quarter-wave vertical antenna?

Select	Answer
A	Install a good radial system
B	Reduce the diameter of the radiating element
C	Isolate the coax shield from ground
D	Shorten the radiating element

43. - E9B13

What does the abbreviation NEC stand for when applied to antenna modeling programs?

Select	Answer
A	Numerical Electromagnetic Code
B	Numeric Electrical Computation
C	National Electrical Code
D	Next Element Comparison

44. - E9C03

What is the radiation pattern of two 1/4 wavelength vertical antennas spaced a 1/2 wavelength apart and fed in phase?

Select	Answer
A	A Figure-8 broadside to the axis of the array
B	A Figure-8 end-fire along the axis of the array
C	Omni-directional
D	Cardioid

45. - E9D05

What is a disadvantage of using a multiband trapped antenna?

Select	Answer
A	It must be neutralized
B	It is too sharply directional at lower frequencies
C	It radiates the harmonics and fundamental equally well
D	It might radiate harmonics

46. - E9E10

Which of these choices is an effective way to match an antenna with a 100 ohm feed point impedance to a 50 ohm coaxial cable feed line?

Select	Answer
A	Connect 1/2 wavelength shorted stub of 75 ohm cable in parallel with the 50 ohm cable where it attaches to the antenna
B	Insert a 1/4-wavelength piece of 75 ohm coaxial cable transmission line in series between the antenna terminals and the 50 ohm feed cable
C	Connect a 1/4-wavelength open stub of 300 ohm twin-lead in parallel with the coaxial feed line where it connects to the antenna
D	Insert a 1/2 wavelength piece of 300 ohm twin-lead in series between the antenna terminals and the 50 ohm feed cable

47. - E9F15

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

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

48. - E9G08

What is the process of normalization with regard to a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Reassigning prime center with regard to the reactance axis
B	Reassigning impedance values with regard to the prime center
C	Reassigning resistance values with regard to the reactance axis
D	Reassigning reactance values with regard to the resistance axis

49. - E9H02

Which is generally true for low band (160 meter and 80 meter) receiving antennas?

Select	Answer
A	Atmospheric noise is so high that gain over a dipole is not important
B	They must be erected at least 1/2 wavelength above the ground to attain good directivity
C	Low loss coax transmission line is essential for good performance
D	All of these choices are correct

50. - E0A01

What is the primary function of an external earth connection or ground rod?

Select	Answer
A	Reduce received noise
B	Lightning protection
C	Reduce RF current flow between pieces of equipment
D	Reduce RFI to telephones and home entertainment systems