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

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1. - E1A12

With your transceiver displaying the carrier frequency of CW signals, you hear a DX station's CQ on 3.500 MHz. Is it legal to return the call using CW on the same frequency?

Select	Answer
A	Yes, the displayed frequency is within the 80 meter CW band segment
B	No, U.S. stations are not permitted to use CW emissions below 3.525 MHz
C	Yes, the DX station initiated the contact
D	No, one of the sidebands of the CW signal will be out of the band

2. - E1B04

What must be done before placing an amateur station within an officially designated wilderness area or wildlife preserve, or an area listed in the National Register of Historical Places?

Select	Answer
A	A proposal must be submitted to the National Park Service
B	An Environmental Assessment must be submitted to the FCC
C	A letter of intent must be filed with the National Audubon Society
D	A form FSD-15 must be submitted to the Department of the Interior

3. - E1C07

What is meant by local control?

Select	Answer
A	Direct manipulation of the transmitter by a control operator
B	Controlling a station through a local auxiliary link
C	Automatically manipulating local station controls
D	Controlling a repeater using a portable handheld transceiver

4. - E1D10

Which amateur stations are eligible to be telecommand stations?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	Any amateur station designated by NASA
C	Any amateur station so designated by the space station licensee, subject to the privileges of the class of operator license held by the control operator
D	Any amateur station so designated by the ITU

5. - E1E14

For which types of out-of-pocket expenses do the Part 97 rules state that VEs and VECs may be reimbursed?

Select	Answer
A	Preparing, processing, administering and coordinating an examination for an amateur radio license
B	Teaching an amateur operator license examination preparation course
C	Providing amateur operator license examination preparation training materials
D	No expenses are authorized for reimbursement

6. - E1F03

Under what circumstances may a dealer sell an external RF power amplifier capable of operation below 144 MHz if it has not been granted FCC certification?

Select	Answer
A	It was imported from a manufacturer in another country and was certificated by that country's government
B	It was purchased in used condition from an amateur operator and is sold to another amateur operator for use at that operator's station
C	It was imported from a manufacturer in a country that does not require certification of RF power amplifiers
D	The equipment dealer assembled it from a kit

7. - E2A10

Why may the received signal from an amateur satellite exhibit a rapidly repeating fading effect?

Select	Answer
A	Because of the satellite's low orbital altitude
B	Because the satellite is spinning
C	Because of the Doppler Effect
D	Because of ionospheric absorption

8. - E2B02

How many horizontal lines make up a fast-scan (NTSC) television frame?

Select	Answer
A	30
B	60
C	525
D	1080

9. - E2C02

Which of the following best describes the term self-spotting in regards to HF contest operating?

Select	Answer
A	An automatic method for rapidly zero beating or tuning to a station's frequency before calling that station
B	The acceptable practice of manually posting the call signs of stations on a spotting network
C	A manual technique for rapidly zero beating or tuning to a station's frequency before calling that station
D	The generally prohibited practice of posting one's own call sign and frequency on a spotting network

10. - E2D01

Which of the following digital modes is especially designed for use for meteor scatter signals?

Select	Answer
A	Hellschreiber
B	WSPR
C	FSK441
D	APRS

11. - E2E04

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

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

12. - E3A02

What characterizes libration fading of an EME signal?

Select	Answer
A	The returning echo is several Hertz lower in frequency than the transmitted signal
B	A slow change in the pitch of the CW signal
C	A fluttery irregular fading
D	A gradual loss of signal as the Sun rises

13. - E3B07

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

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

14. - E3C01

What does the term ray tracing describe in regard to radio communications?

Select	Answer
A	The process in which an electronic display presents a pattern
B	Determining the radiation pattern from an array of antennas
C	Evaluating high voltage sources for X-Rays
D	Modeling a radio wave's path through the ionosphere

15. - E4A01

Which of the following parameter determines the bandwidth of a digital or computer-based oscilloscope?

Select	Answer
A	Input impedance
B	Sampling rate
C	Sample resolution
D	Input capacitance

16. - E4B03

If a frequency counter with a specified accuracy of +/- 1.0 ppm reads 146,520,000 Hz, what is the most the actual frequency being measured could differ from the reading?

Select	Answer
A	1.4652 MHz
B	146.52 Hz
C	14.652 kHz
D	165.2 Hz

17. - E4C06

A CW receiver with the AGC off has an equivalent input noise power density of -174 dBm/Hz. What would be the level of an unmodulated carrier input to this receiver that would yield an audio output SNR of 0 dB in a 400 Hz noise bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	-148 dBm
B	-174 dBm
C	-155 dBm
D	-164 dBm

18. - E4D02

Which of the following describes two problems caused by poor dynamic range in a communications receiver?

Select	Answer
A	Oscillator instability requiring frequent retuning and loss of ability to recover the opposite sideband
B	Oscillator instability and severe audio distortion of all but the strongest received signals
C	Cross-modulation of the desired signal and insufficient audio power to operate the speaker
D	Cross-modulation of the desired signal and desensitization from strong adjacent signals

19. - E4E10

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

Select	Answer
A	The interfering signal may drift slowly across the HF spectrum
B	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
C	All of these choices are correct
D	The interfering signal can be several kHz in width and usually repeats at regular intervals across a HF band

20. - E5A05

What is the magnitude of the current at the input of a series RLC circuit as the frequency goes through resonance?

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

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 shifted by 90 degrees
C	The sign is reversed
D	It is unchanged

22. - E5C12

If you plot the impedance of a circuit using the rectangular coordinate system and find the impedance point falls on the right side of the graph on the horizontal axis, what do you know about the circuit?

Select	Answer
A	It is equivalent to a pure resistance
B	It contains resistance and inductive reactance
C	It has to be a direct current circuit
D	It contains resistance and capacitive reactance

23. - E5D15

What is the power factor of an R-L circuit having a 45 degree phase angle between the voltage and the current?

Select	Answer
A	0.5
B	0.707
C	1.0
D	0.866

24. - E6A09

What is a depletion-mode FET?

Select	Answer
A	Any FET without a channel
B	An FET that exhibits a current flow between source and drain when no gate voltage is applied
C	Any FET for which holes are the majority carriers
D	An FET that has no current flow between source and drain when no gate voltage is applied

25. - E6B13

What type of bias is required for an LED to emit light?

Select	Answer
A	Inductive bias
B	Reverse bias
C	Zero bias
D	Forward bias

26. - E6C02

What happens when the level of a comparator's input signal crosses the threshold?

Select	Answer
A	The feedback loop becomes unstable
B	The comparator enters latch-up
C	The IC input can be damaged
D	The comparator changes its output state

27. - E6D03

Which of the following is an aspect of the piezoelectric effect?

Select	Answer
A	Mechanical deformation of material by the application of a voltage
B	Increased conductivity in the presence of light
C	Generation of electrical energy in the presence of light
D	Mechanical deformation of material by the application of a magnetic field

28. - E6E06

What characteristics of the MMIC make it a popular choice for VHF through microwave circuits?

Select	Answer
A	Plate current that is controlled by a control grid
B	Controlled gain, low noise figure, and constant input and output impedance over the specified frequency range
C	The ability to retrieve information from a single signal even in the presence of other strong signals
D	Nearly infinite gain, very high input impedance, and very low output impedance

29. - E6F03

What is the most common configuration of an optoisolator or optocoupler?

Select	Answer
A	An amplitude modulated helium-neon laser
B	An LED and a phototransistor
C	A frequency modulated helium-neon laser
D	A lens and a photomultiplier

30. - E7A12

What type of logic defines "0" as a high voltage?

Select	Answer
A	Positive Logic
B	Assertive Logic
C	Negative logic
D	Reverse Logic

31. - E7B15

What is one way to prevent thermal runaway in a bipolar transistor amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	Select transistors with high beta
B	Neutralization
C	Use a resistor in series with the emitter
D	All of these choices are correct

32. - E7C04

How does an impedance-matching circuit transform a complex impedance to a resistive impedance?

Select	Answer
A	It introduces transconductance to cancel the reactive part of impedance
B	It introduces negative resistance to cancel the resistive part of impedance
C	It cancels the reactive part of the impedance and changes the resistive part to a desired value
D	Network resistances are substituted for load resistances and reactances are matched to the resistances

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

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. - E7F10

What aspect of receiver analog-to-digital conversion determines the maximum receive bandwidth of a Direct Digital Conversion SDR?

Select	Answer
A	Processor latency
B	Sample rate
C	Sample clock phase noise
D	Sample width in bits

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	38
B	76
C	1
D	0.03

37. - E7H07

How can an oscillator's microphonic responses be reduced?

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

38. - E8A01

What is the name of the process that shows that a square wave is made up of a sine wave plus all of its odd harmonics?

Select	Answer
A	Differential analysis
B	Vector analysis
C	Fourier analysis
D	Numerical analysis

39. - E8B03

What is the modulation index of an FM-phone signal having a maximum frequency deviation of 3000 Hz either side of the carrier frequency when the modulating frequency is 1000 Hz?

Select	Answer
A	1000
B	0.3
C	3
D	3000

40. - E8C09

Which is the name of a digital code where each preceding or following character changes by only one bit?

Select	Answer
A	Gray code
B	Binary Coded Decimal Code
C	Excess 3 code
D	Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code

41. - E8D08

What parameter might indicate that excessively high input levels are causing distortion in an AFSK signal?

Select	Answer
A	Intermodulation Distortion (IMD)
B	Baud rate
C	Repeat Request Rate (RRR)
D	Signal to noise ratio

42. - E9A07

What is meant by antenna gain?

Select	Answer
A	The ratio of the amount of power radiated by an antenna compared to the transmitter output power
B	The ratio of the signal in the forward direction to that in the opposite direction
C	The final amplifier gain minus the transmission line losses
D	The ratio of the radiated signal strength of an antenna in the direction of maximum radiation to that of a reference antenna

43. - E9B07

How does the total amount of radiation emitted by a directional gain antenna compare with the total amount of radiation emitted from an isotropic antenna, assuming each is driven by the same amount of power?

Select	Answer
A	They are the same
B	The total amount of radiation from the directional antenna is stronger by its front-to-back ratio
C	The total amount of radiation from the directional antenna is increased by the gain of the antenna
D	The radiation from the isotropic antenna is 2.15 dB stronger than that from the directional antenna

44. - E9C09

What is a G5RV antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A wide band dipole using shorted coaxial cable for the radiating elements and fed with a 4:1 balun
B	A multi-band trap antenna
C	A multi-band dipole antenna fed with coax and a balun through a selected length of open wire transmission line
D	A phased array antenna consisting of multiple loops

45. - E9D06

What happens to the bandwidth of an antenna as it is shortened through the use of loading coils?

Select	Answer
A	No change occurs
B	It becomes flat
C	It is decreased
D	It is increased

46. - E9E13

What is a use for a Wilkinson divider?

Select	Answer
A	It is used to feed low-impedance loads from a high-impedance source
B	It is used to divide power equally between two 50 ohm loads while maintaining 50 ohm input impedance
C	It is used to feed high-impedance antennas from a low-impedance source
D	It divides the operating frequency of a transmitter signal so it can be used on a lower frequency band

47. - E9F13

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

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

48. - E9G04

What are the two families of circles and arcs that make up a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Resistance and reactance
B	Voltage and impedance
C	Resistance and voltage
D	Reactance and voltage

49. - E9H09

Which of the following describes the construction of a receiving loop antenna?

Select	Answer
A	One or more turns of wire wound in the shape of a large open coil
B	A large circularly polarized antenna
C	A vertical antenna coupled to a feed line through an inductive loop of wire
D	A small coil of wire tightly wound around a toroidal ferrite core

50. - E0A09

Which insulating material commonly used as a thermal conductor for some types of electronic devices is extremely toxic if broken or crushed and the particles are accidentally inhaled?

Select	Answer
A	Mica
B	Beryllium Oxide
C	Zinc oxide
D	Uranium Hexafluoride

Figure E7-4