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

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1. - E1A09

What is the first action you should take if your digital message forwarding station inadvertently forwards a communication that violates FCC rules?

Select	Answer
A	Discontinue forwarding all messages
B	Discontinue forwarding the communication as soon as you become aware of it
C	Notify the nearest FCC Field Engineer's office
D	Notify the originating station that the communication does not comply with FCC rules

2. - E1B09

Which amateur stations may be operated under RACES rules?

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

3. - E1C13

Which of the following is required in order to operate in accordance with CEPT rules in foreign countries where permitted?

Select	Answer
A	You must append "/CEPT" to your call sign
B	The U.S. embassy must approve of your operation
C	You must bring a copy of FCC Public Notice DA 11-221
D	You must identify in the official language of the country in which you are operating

4. - E1D10

Which amateur stations are eligible to be telecommand stations?

Select	Answer
A	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
B	Any amateur station so designated by the ITU
C	All of these choices are correct
D	Any amateur station designated by NASA

5. - E1E12

What must the VE team do with the application form if the examinee does not pass the exam?

Select	Answer
A	Send the application form to the FCC and inform the FCC of the grade
B	Destroy the application form
C	Maintain the application form with the VEC's records
D	Return the application document to the examinee

6. - E1F07

When may an amateur station send a message to a business?

Select	Answer
A	When the total money involved does not exceed $25
B	When transmitting international third-party communications
C	When the control operator is employed by the FCC or another government agency
D	When neither the amateur nor his or her employer has a pecuniary interest in the communications

7. - E2A08

Why should effective radiated power to a satellite which uses a linear transponder be limited?

Select	Answer
A	To prevent creating errors in the satellite telemetry
B	To avoid interfering with terrestrial QSOs
C	To avoid reducing the downlink power to all other users
D	To prevent the satellite from emitting out-of-band signals

8. - E2B01

How many times per second is a new frame transmitted in a fast-scan (NTSC) television system?

Select	Answer
A	120
B	90
C	60
D	30

9. - E2C05

What is the function of a DX QSL Manager?

Select	Answer
A	To handle the receiving and sending of confirmation cards for a DX station
B	To run a net to allow many stations to contact a rare DX station
C	To relay calls to and from a DX station
D	To allocate frequencies for DXpeditions

10. - E2D02

Which of the following is a good technique for making meteor scatter contacts?

Select	Answer
A	Use of high speed CW or digital modes
B	All of these choices are correct
C	15 second timed transmission sequences with stations alternating based on location
D	Short transmission with rapidly repeated call signs and signal reports

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	Fatal Error Correction
D	Forward Error Correction

12. - E3A03

When scheduling EME contacts, which of these conditions will generally result in the least path loss?

Select	Answer
A	When the Moon is at apogee
B	When the Moon is full
C	When the Moon is at perigee
D	When the MUF is above 30 MHz

13. - E3B08

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

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

14. - E3C06

By how much does the VHF/UHF radio horizon distance exceed the geometric horizon?

Select	Answer
A	By approximately four times the distance
B	By approximately 15 percent of the distance
C	By approximately twice the distance
D	By approximately 50 percent of the distance

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 time-domain reflectometer
B	A wattmeter
C	A spectrum analyzer
D	A logic analyzer

16. - E4B04

If a frequency counter with a specified accuracy of +/- 0.1 ppm reads 146,520,000 Hz, what is the most the actual frequency being measured could differ from the reading?

Select	Answer
A	14.652 Hz
B	1.4652 Hz
C	0.1 MHz
D	1.4652 kHz

17. - E4C15

What is usually the primary source of noise that is heard from an HF receiver with an antenna connected?

Select	Answer
A	Induction motor noise
B	Receiver front-end noise
C	Detector noise
D	Atmospheric noise

18. - E4D05

What transmitter frequencies would cause an intermodulation-product signal in a receiver tuned to 146.70 MHz when a nearby station transmits on 146.52 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	146.10 MHz and 147.30 MHz
B	146.34 MHz and 146.61 MHz
C	173.35 MHz and 139.40 MHz
D	146.88 MHz and 146.34 MHz

19. - E4E15

Which of the following can cause shielded cables to radiate or receive interference?

Select	Answer
A	Common mode currents on the shield and conductors
B	Tying all ground connections to a common point resulting in differential mode currents in the shield
C	Use of braided shielding material
D	Low inductance ground connections at both ends of the shield

20. - E5A07

What is the magnitude of the current at the input of a parallel RLC circuit at 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	It is shifted by 90 degrees
B	The sign is reversed
C	It is unchanged
D	The magnitude of the susceptance is the reciprocal of the magnitude of the reactance

22. - E5C13

What coordinate system is often used to display the resistive, inductive, and/or capacitive reactance components of impedance?

Select	Answer
A	Elliptical coordinates
B	Rectangular coordinates
C	Maidenhead grid
D	Faraday grid

23. - E5D14

What is reactive power?

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

24. - E6A02

Which of the following semiconductor materials contains excess free electrons?

Select	Answer
A	Bipolar
B	P-type
C	N-type
D	Insulated gate

25. - E6B09

What is a common use for point contact diodes?

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

26. - E6C02

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

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

27. - E6D15

What is current in the primary winding of a transformer called if no load is attached to the secondary?

Select	Answer
A	Direct current
B	Stabilizing current
C	Excitation current
D	Magnetizing current

28. - E6E03

Which of the following materials is likely to provide the highest frequency of operation when used in MMICs?

Select	Answer
A	Gallium nitride
B	Silicon nitride
C	Silicon dioxide
D	Silicon

29. - E6F06

Which of these materials is affected the most by photoconductivity?

Select	Answer
A	A liquid semiconductor
B	An ordinary metal
C	A crystalline semiconductor
D	A heavy metal

30. - E7A07

What logical operation does a NAND gate perform?

Select	Answer
A	It produces logic "0" at its output if some but not all inputs are logic "1"
B	It produces logic "0" at its output only when all inputs are logic "0"
C	It produces logic "0" at its output only when all inputs are logic "1"
D	It produces logic "1" at its output only when all inputs are logic "1"

31. - E7B12

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

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

32. - E7C13

What is one advantage of a Pi-matching network over an L-matching network consisting of a single inductor and a single capacitor?

Select	Answer
A	Pi-networks are designed for balanced input and output
B	L-networks cannot perform impedance transformation
C	Pi-networks have fewer components
D	The Q of Pi-networks can be varied depending on the component values chosen

33. - E7D11

What circuit element is controlled by a series analog voltage regulator to maintain a constant output voltage?

Select	Answer
A	Pass transistor
B	Error amplifier
C	Reference voltage
D	Switching inductance

34. - E7E04

What is one way a single-sideband phone signal can be generated?

Select	Answer
A	By using a reactance modulator followed by a mixer
B	By using a balanced modulator followed by a filter
C	By driving a product detector with a DSB signal
D	By using a loop modulator followed by a mixer

35. - E7F10

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

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

36. - E7G07

What magnitude of voltage gain can be expected from the circuit in Figure E7-4 when R1 is 10 ohms and RF is 470 ohms?

Select	Answer
A	0.21
B	47
C	94
D	24

37. - E7H11

What are the major spectral impurity components of direct digital synthesizers?

Select	Answer
A	Digital conversion noise
B	Nyquist limit noise
C	Spurious signals at discrete frequencies
D	Broadband noise

38. - E8A09

How many levels can an analog-to-digital converter with 8 bit resolution encode?

Select	Answer
A	256
B	8
C	256 divided by the gain of the input amplifier
D	8 multiplied by the gain of the input amplifier

39. - E8B06

What is the deviation ratio of an FM-phone signal having a maximum frequency swing of plus or minus 7.5 kHz when the maximum modulation frequency is 3.5 kHz?

Select	Answer
A	0.47
B	2.14
C	0.214
D	47

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	All of these choices are correct
C	It improves carrier suppression
D	This results in the least possible transmitted bandwidth for the particular mode

41. - E8D10

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

Select	Answer
A	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
B	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
C	Baudot uses 7 data bits per character, ASCII uses 8; Baudot has no letters/figures shift code, ASCII uses 2 letters/figures shift codes
D	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

42. - E9A08

What is meant by antenna bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	Antenna length divided by the number of elements
B	The frequency range over which an antenna satisfies a performance requirement
C	The angle formed between two imaginary lines drawn through the element ends
D	The angle between the half-power radiation points

43. - E9B15

What is the front-to-back ratio of the radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-2?

Select	Answer
A	3 dB
B	28 dB
C	15 dB
D	24 dB

44. - E9C12

Which of the following describes an extended double Zepp antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A center fed 1.25 wavelength antenna (two 5/8 wave elements in phase)
B	A wideband vertical antenna constructed from precisely tapered aluminum tubing
C	A portable antenna erected using two push support poles
D	An end fed folded dipole antenna

45. - E9D02

How can linearly polarized Yagi antennas be used to produce circular polarization?

Select	Answer
A	Stack two Yagis fed 90 degrees out of phase to form an array with the respective elements in parallel planes
B	Arrange two Yagis collinear to each other with the driven elements fed 180 degrees out of phase
C	Arrange two Yagis perpendicular to each other with the driven elements at the same point on the boom fed 90 degrees out of phase
D	Stack two Yagis fed in phase to form an array with the respective elements in parallel planes

46. - E9E03

What is the name of the matching system that uses a section of transmission line connected in parallel with the feed line at or near the feed point?

Select	Answer
A	The stub match
B	The delta match
C	The gamma match
D	The omega match

47. - E9F10

What impedance does a 1/8 wavelength transmission line present to a generator when the line is shorted at the far end?

Select	Answer
A	An inductive reactance
B	The same as the input impedance to the final generator stage
C	A capacitive reactance
D	The same as the characteristic impedance of the line

48. - E9G10

What do the arcs on a Smith chart represent?

Select	Answer
A	Frequency
B	SWR
C	Points with constant resistance
D	Points with constant reactance

49. - E9H09

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

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

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

Figure E7-1

Figure E7-4

Figure E9-2