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

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1. - E1A05

What is the maximum power output permitted on the 60 meter band?

Select	Answer
A	50 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to an isotropic radiator
B	50 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to a dipole
C	100 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to an isotropic radiator
D	100 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to the gain of a half-wave dipole

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	30 miles
D	3 miles

3. - E1C05

When may an automatically controlled station originate third party communications?

Select	Answer
A	When agreed upon by the sending or receiving station
B	Never
C	Only when transmitting RTTY or data emissions
D	When approved by the National Telecommunication and Information Administration

4. - E1D11

Which amateur stations are eligible to operate as Earth stations?

Select	Answer
A	Only those of Amateur Extra Class operators
B	Any amateur station whose licensee has filed a pre-space notification with the FCC's International Bureau
C	Only those of General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators
D	Any amateur station, subject to the privileges of the class of operator license held by the control operator

5. - E1E08

To which of the following examinees may a VE not administer an examination?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	Employees of the VE
C	Friends of the VE
D	Relatives of the VE as listed in the FCC rules

6. - E1F02

What privileges are authorized in the U.S. to persons holding an amateur service license granted by the Government of Canada?

Select	Answer
A	None, they must obtain a U.S. license
B	The operating terms and conditions of the Canadian amateur service license, not to exceed U.S. Extra Class privileges
C	All privileges of the Extra Class license
D	Full privileges, up to and including those of the Extra Class License, on the 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meter bands

7. - E2A13

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

Select	Answer
A	HEO
B	Geomagnetic
C	LEO
D	Geostationary

8. - E2B12

How are analog SSTV images typically transmitted on the HF bands?

Select	Answer
A	Video is converted to equivalent Baudot representation
B	Varying tone frequencies representing the video are transmitted using single sideband
C	Video is converted to equivalent ASCII representation
D	Varying tone frequencies representing the video are transmitted using PSK

9. - E2C01

Which of the following is true about contest operating?

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

10. - E2D03

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

Select	Answer
A	FSK441
B	JT65
C	Olivia
D	PACTOR III

11. - E2E10

Which of these digital modes has the narrowest bandwidth?

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

12. - E3A05

Tropospheric propagation of microwave signals often occurs along what weather related structure?

Select	Answer
A	Sprites and jets
B	Warm and cold fronts
C	Gray-line
D	Lightning discharges

13. - E3B12

What is the primary characteristic of chordal hop propagation?

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

14. - E3C12

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

Select	Answer
A	It decreases
B	It increases
C	It stays the same
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 spectrum analyzer
B	A wattmeter
C	A logic analyzer
D	A time-domain reflectometer

16. - E4B08

Which of the following is a characteristic of a good DC voltmeter?

Select	Answer
A	Low reluctance input
B	Low impedance input
C	High reluctance input
D	High impedance input

17. - E4C11

Which of the following is a desirable amount of selectivity for an amateur SSB phone receiver?

Select	Answer
A	1 kHz
B	4.2 kHz
C	4.8 kHz
D	2.4 kHz

18. - E4D14

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

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

19. - E4E10

What is a common characteristic of interference caused by a touch controlled electrical device?

Select	Answer
A	The interfering signal sounds like AC hum on an AM receiver or a carrier modulated by 60 Hz hum on a SSB or CW receiver
B	The interfering signal may drift slowly across the HF spectrum
C	The interfering signal can be several kHz in width and usually repeats at regular intervals across a HF band
D	All of these choices are correct

20. - E5A15

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

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

21. - E5B01

What is the term for the time required for the capacitor in an RC circuit to be charged to 63.2% of the applied voltage?

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

22. - E5C17

Which point on Figure E5-2 best represents the impedance of a series circuit consisting of a 300 ohm resistor, a 0.64-microhenry inductor and an 85-picofarad capacitor at 24.900 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	Point 1
B	Point 3
C	Point 5
D	Point 8

23. - E5D14

What is reactive power?

Select	Answer
A	Power lost because of capacitor leakage
B	Power consumed in wire resistance in an inductor
C	Wattless, nonproductive power
D	Power consumed in circuit Q

24. - E6A05

What is the alpha of a bipolar junction transistor?

Select	Answer
A	The change of collector current with respect to gate current
B	The change of base current with respect to collector current
C	The change of collector current with respect to base current
D	The change of collector current with respect to emitter current

25. - E6B08

Which of the following describes a type of semiconductor diode?

Select	Answer
A	Thermionic emission diode
B	Metal-semiconductor junction
C	Electrolytic rectifier
D	CMOS-field effect

26. - E6C11

In Figure E6-5, what is the schematic symbol for the NOT operation (inverter)?

Select	Answer
A	4
B	2
C	6
D	5

27. - E6D13

What is the primary cause of inductor self-resonance?

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

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

29. - E6F02

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

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

30. - E7A02

What is the function of a decade counter digital IC?

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

31. - E7B02

What is a Class D amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	A frequency doubling amplifier
B	An amplifier that uses drift-mode FETs for high efficiency
C	A low power amplifier that uses a differential amplifier for improved linearity
D	A type of amplifier that uses switching technology to achieve high efficiency

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	An active LC filter
C	A Chebyshev filter
D	A Butterworth filter

33. - E7D12

What is the drop-out voltage of an analog voltage regulator?

Select	Answer
A	Minimum input voltage for rated power dissipation
B	Minimum input-to-output voltage required to maintain regulation
C	Maximum amount that the output voltage may decrease at rated load
D	Maximum amount that the output voltage drops when the input voltage is varied over its specified range

34. - E7E03

How does an analog phase modulator function?

Select	Answer
A	By varying the tuning of an amplifier tank circuit to produce AM signals
B	By varying the tuning of an amplifier tank circuit to produce PM signals
C	By varying the tuning of a microphone preamplifier to produce AM signals
D	By varying the tuning of a microphone preamplifier to produce PM signals

35. - E7F04

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

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

36. - E7G11

What absolute voltage gain can be expected from the circuit in Figure E7-4 when R1 is 3300 ohms and RF is 47 kilohms?

Select	Answer
A	14
B	28
C	0.07
D	7

37. - E7H07

How can an oscillator's microphonic responses be reduced?

Select	Answer
A	Using the oscillator only for CW and digital signals
B	Use of NP0 capacitors
C	Eliminating noise on the oscillator's power supply
D	Mechanically isolating the oscillator circuitry from its enclosure

38. - E8A08

Why would a direct or flash conversion analog-to-digital converter be useful for a software defined radio?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	Very high speed allows digitizing high frequencies
C	Immunity to out of sequence coding reduces spurious responses
D	Very low power consumption decreases frequency drift

39. - E8B04

What is the modulation index of an FM-phone signal having a maximum carrier deviation of plus or minus 6 kHz when modulated with a 2 kHz modulating frequency?

Select	Answer
A	6000
B	1/3
C	2000
D	3

40. - E8C01

How is Forward Error Correction implemented?

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

41. - E8D10

What are some of the differences between the Baudot digital code and ASCII?

Select	Answer
A	Baudot uses 5 data bits per character, ASCII uses 7 or 8; Baudot uses 2 characters as letters/figures shift codes, ASCII has no letters/figures shift code
B	Baudot uses 7 data bits per character, ASCII uses 8; Baudot has no letters/figures shift code, ASCII uses 2 letters/figures shift codes
C	Baudot uses 4 data bits per character, ASCII uses 7 or 8; Baudot uses 1 character as a letters/figures shift code, ASCII has no letters/figures code
D	Baudot uses 6 data bits per character, ASCII uses 7 or 8; Baudot has no letters/figures shift code, ASCII uses 2 letters/figures shift codes

42. - E9A04

Which of the following factors may affect the feed point impedance of an antenna?

Select	Answer
A	Antenna height, conductor length/diameter ratio and location of nearby conductive objects
B	Transmission-line length
C	The settings of an antenna tuner at the transmitter
D	Sunspot activity and time of day

43. - E9B04

What may occur when a directional antenna is operated at different frequencies within the band for which it was designed?

Select	Answer
A	Element spacing limits could be exceeded
B	The E-field and H-field patterns may reverse
C	The gain may change depending on frequency
D	Feed point impedance may become negative

44. - E9C13

What is the main effect of placing a vertical antenna over an imperfect ground?

Select	Answer
A	It reduces low-angle radiation
B	It changes the impedance angle of the matching network
C	It causes increased SWR
D	It reduces losses in the radiating portion of the antenna

45. - E9D01

How does the gain of an ideal parabolic dish antenna change when the operating frequency is doubled?

Select	Answer
A	Gain does not change
B	Gain increases by 6 dB
C	Gain is multiplied by 0.707
D	Gain increases by 3 dB

46. - E9E04

What is the purpose of the series capacitor in a gamma-type antenna matching network?

Select	Answer
A	To transform the antenna impedance to a higher value
B	To provide a rejection notch that prevents the radiation of harmonics
C	To cancel the inductive reactance of the matching network
D	To provide DC isolation between the feed line and the antenna

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	Very high impedance
C	The same as the characteristic impedance of the line
D	Very low impedance

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. - E9H08

What is the function of a sense antenna?

Select	Answer
A	It modifies the pattern of a DF antenna array to provide a null in one direction
B	It allows DF antennas to receive signals at different vertical angles
C	It provides diversity reception that cancels multipath signals
D	It increases the sensitivity of a DF antenna array

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

Figure E5-2

Figure E6-5

Figure E7-4