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

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1. - E1A11

Which of the following describes authorization or licensing required when operating an amateur station aboard a U.S.-registered vessel in international waters?

Select	Answer
A	Only General class or higher amateur licenses
B	An unrestricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit
C	Any FCC-issued amateur license
D	Any amateur license with an FCC Marine or Aircraft endorsement

2. - E1B02

Which of the following factors might cause the physical location of an amateur station apparatus or antenna structure to be restricted?

Select	Answer
A	The location is of environmental importance or significant in American history, architecture, or culture
B	The location is of geographical or horticultural importance
C	The location is in an ITU Zone designated for coordination with one or more foreign governments
D	The location is near an area of political conflict

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

4. - E1D06

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

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

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	Relatives of the VE as listed in the FCC rules
C	Friends of the VE
D	Employees of the VE

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

7. - E2A10

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

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

8. - E2B14

What aspect of an amateur slow-scan television signal encodes the brightness of the picture?

Select	Answer
A	Tone frequency
B	Sync amplitude
C	Tone amplitude
D	Sync frequency

9. - E2C08

Which of the following contacts may be confirmed through the U.S. QSL bureau system?

Select	Answer
A	Contacts between a U.S. station and a non-U.S. station
B	Repeater contacts between U.S. club members
C	Contacts using tactical call signs
D	Special event contacts between stations in the U.S.

10. - E2D06

Which of the following describes a method of establishing EME contacts?

Select	Answer
A	Storing and forwarding digital messages
B	Time synchronous transmissions alternately from each station
C	Judging optimum transmission times by monitoring beacons reflected from the Moon
D	High speed CW identification to avoid fading

11. - E2E04

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

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

12. - E3A04

What do Hepburn maps predict?

Select	Answer
A	Probability of tropospheric propagation
B	Sporadic E propagation
C	Locations of auroral reflecting zones
D	Likelihood of rain-scatter along cold or warm fronts

13. - E3B07

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

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

14. - E3C14

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

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

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

16. - E4B06

How much power is being absorbed by the load when a directional power meter connected between a transmitter and a terminating load reads 100 watts forward power and 25 watts reflected power?

Select	Answer
A	75 watts
B	100 watts
C	125 watts
D	25 watts

17. - E4C10

Which of the following is a desirable amount of selectivity for an amateur RTTY HF receiver?

Select	Answer
A	100 Hz
B	2400 Hz
C	300 Hz
D	6000 Hz

18. - E4D13

Which of the following can cause receiver desensitization?

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

19. - E4E14

What is one type of electrical interference that might be caused by the operation of a nearby personal computer?

Select	Answer
A	A whining type noise that continually pulses off and on
B	A loud AC hum in the audio output of your station receiver
C	A clicking noise at intervals of a few seconds
D	The appearance of unstable modulated or unmodulated signals at specific frequencies

20. - E5A11

What is the half-power bandwidth of a parallel resonant circuit that has a resonant frequency of 7.1 MHz and a Q of 150?

Select	Answer
A	157.8 Hz
B	47.3 kHz
C	23.67 kHz
D	315.6 Hz

21. - E5B04

What is the time constant of a circuit having two 220 microfarad capacitors and two 1 megohm resistors, all in parallel?

Select	Answer
A	220 seconds
B	110 seconds
C	55 seconds
D	440 seconds

22. - E5C16

Which point on Figure E5-2 best represents the impedance of a series circuit consisting of a 300 ohm resistor and a 19 picofarad capacitor at 21.200 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	Point 3
B	Point 1
C	Point 7
D	Point 8

23. - E5D13

How much power is consumed in a circuit consisting of a 100 ohm resistor in series with a 100 ohm inductive reactance drawing 1 ampere?

Select	Answer
A	141.4 Watts
B	200 Watts
C	70.7 Watts
D	100 Watts

24. - E6A03

Why does a PN-junction diode not conduct current when reverse biased?

Select	Answer
A	Holes in P-type material and electrons in the N-type material are separated by the applied voltage, widening the depletion region
B	Only P-type semiconductor material can conduct current
C	Excess holes in P-type material combine with the electrons in N-type material, converting the entire diode into an insulator
D	Only N-type semiconductor material can conduct current

25. - E6B11

What is used to control the attenuation of RF signals by a PIN diode?

Select	Answer
A	Forward DC bias current
B	Reverse voltage larger than the RF signal
C	Capacitance of an RF coupling capacitor
D	A sub-harmonic pump signal

26. - E6C05

What is an advantage of CMOS logic devices over TTL devices?

Select	Answer
A	Lower power consumption
B	Differential output capability
C	Lower distortion
D	Immune to damage from static discharge

27. - E6D02

What is the equivalent circuit of a quartz crystal?

Select	Answer
A	Motional inductance and loss resistance in series, paralleled with motional capacitance and a capacitor representing electrode and stray capacitance
B	Motional capacitance, motional inductance, loss resistance, and a capacitor representing electrode and stray capacitance all in series
C	Motional capacitance, motional inductance, loss resistance, and a capacitor representing electrode and stray capacitance all in parallel
D	Motional capacitance, motional inductance, and loss resistance in series, all in parallel with a shunt capacitor representing electrode and stray capacitance

28. - E6E11

What is a characteristic of DIP packaging used for integrated circuits?

Select	Answer
A	Low leakage doubly insulated package
B	Two chips in each package (Dual In Package)
C	Package mounts in a direct inverted position
D	A total of two rows of connecting pins placed on opposite sides of the package (Dual In-line Package)

29. - E6F11

What is the approximate open-circuit voltage produced by a fully-illuminated silicon photovoltaic cell?

Select	Answer
A	12 V
B	1.5 V
C	0.1 V
D	0.5 V

30. - E7A01

Which is a bi-stable circuit?

Select	Answer
A	A clock
B	An "OR" gate
C	An "AND" gate
D	A flip-flop

31. - E7B12

What type of amplifier circuit is shown in Figure E7-1?

Select	Answer
A	Common emitter
B	Common collector
C	Common base
D	Emitter follower

32. - E7C15

What is a crystal lattice filter?

Select	Answer
A	An audio filter made with four quartz crystals that resonate at 1kHz intervals
B	A filter with wide bandwidth and shallow skirts made using quartz crystals
C	A power supply filter made with interlaced quartz crystals
D	A filter with narrow bandwidth and steep skirts made using quartz crystals

33. - E7D04

Which of the following types of linear voltage regulator usually make the most efficient use of the primary power source?

Select	Answer
A	A shunt regulator
B	A series current source
C	A series regulator
D	A shunt current source

34. - E7E12

What is a frequency discriminator stage in a FM receiver?

Select	Answer
A	A circuit for detecting FM signals
B	An FM generator circuit
C	A circuit for filtering two closely adjacent signals
D	An automatic band-switching circuit

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 clock phase noise
C	Sample width in bits
D	Sample rate

36. - E7G03

What is the typical input impedance of an integrated circuit op-amp?

Select	Answer
A	1000 ohms
B	Very high
C	Very low
D	100 ohms

37. - E7H03

How is positive feedback supplied in a Hartley oscillator?

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

38. - E8A10

What is the purpose of a low pass filter used in conjunction with a digital-to-analog converter?

Select	Answer
A	Remove harmonics from the output caused by the discrete analog levels generated
B	Lower the input bandwidth to increase the effective resolution
C	All of these choices are correct
D	Improve accuracy by removing out of sequence codes from the input

39. - E8B10

What describes frequency division multiplexing?

Select	Answer
A	The transmitted signal is divided into packets of information
B	Two or more information streams are merged into a baseband, which then modulates the transmitter
C	Two or more information streams are merged into a digital combiner, which then pulse position modulates the transmitter
D	The transmitted signal jumps from band to band at a predetermined rate

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 the receiving station repeating each block of three data characters
C	By transmitting extra data that may be used to detect and correct transmission errors
D	By transmitting a special algorithm to the receiving station along with the data characters

41. - E8D02

What spread spectrum communications technique uses a high speed binary bit stream to shift the phase of an RF carrier?

Select	Answer
A	Direct sequence
B	Phase compandored spread spectrum
C	Binary phase-shift keying
D	Frequency hopping

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	300 watts
B	317 watts
C	126 watts
D	2000 watts

43. - E9B01

In the antenna radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-1, what is the 3 dB beam-width?

Select	Answer
A	30 degrees
B	75 degrees
C	50 degrees
D	25 degrees

44. - E9C05

What is an OCFD antenna?

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

45. - E9D08

What happens as the Q of an antenna increases?

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

46. - E9E11

What is an effective way of matching a feed line to a VHF or UHF antenna when the impedances of both the antenna and feed line are unknown?

Select	Answer
A	Connect a parallel-resonant LC network across the antenna feed terminals
B	Connect a series-resonant LC network across the antenna feed terminals
C	Use a 50 ohm 1:1 balun between the antenna and feed line
D	Use the universal stub matching technique

47. - E9F02

Which of the following determines the velocity factor of a transmission line?

Select	Answer
A	The line length
B	Dielectric materials used in the line
C	The termination impedance
D	The center conductor resistivity

48. - E9G07

On the Smith chart shown in Figure E9-3, what is the only straight line shown?

Select	Answer
A	The reactance axis
B	The voltage axis
C	The current axis
D	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. - E0A05

What is one of the potential hazards of using microwaves in the amateur radio bands?

Select	Answer
A	The extremely high frequency energy can damage the joints of antenna structures
B	The high gain antennas commonly used can result in high exposure levels
C	Microwaves often travel long distances by ionospheric reflection
D	Microwaves are ionizing radiation

Figure E5-2

Figure E7-1

Figure E9-1

Figure E9-3