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

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

3. - E1C12

What types of communications may be transmitted to amateur stations in foreign countries?

Select	Answer
A	Messages intended for connection to users of the maritime satellite service
B	Business-related messages for non-profit organizations
C	All of these choices are correct
D	Communications incidental to the purpose of the amateur service and remarks of a personal nature

4. - E1D03

What is a telecommand station in the amateur satellite service?

Select	Answer
A	An amateur station that transmits communications to initiate, modify or terminate functions of a space station
B	An amateur station located on the Earth's surface for communication with other Earth stations by means of Earth satellites
C	An amateur station located more than 50 km above the Earth's surface
D	An amateur station that transmits telemetry consisting of measurements of upper atmosphere

5. - E1E09

What may be the penalty for a VE who fraudulently administers or certifies an examination?

Select	Answer
A	A fine of up to $1000 per occurrence
B	A sentence of up to one year in prison
C	Revocation of the VE's amateur station license grant and the suspension of the VE's amateur operator license grant
D	All of these choices are correct

6. - E1F01

On what frequencies are spread spectrum transmissions permitted?

Select	Answer
A	Only on amateur frequencies above 222 MHz
B	Only on amateur frequencies above 420 MHz
C	Only on amateur frequencies above 50 MHz
D	Only on amateur frequencies above 144 MHz

7. - E2A12

What is one way to predict the location of a satellite at a given time?

Select	Answer
A	By calculations using the Keplerian elements for the specified satellite
B	By subtracting the mean anomaly from the orbital inclination
C	By means of the Doppler data for the specified satellite
D	By adding the mean anomaly to the orbital inclination

8. - E2B01

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

Select	Answer
A	90
B	30
C	60
D	120

9. - E2C07

What is the Cabrillo format?

Select	Answer
A	A standard for submission of electronic contest logs
B	The most common set of contest rules
C	A method of exchanging information during a contest QSO
D	The rules of order for meetings between contest sponsors

10. - E2D07

What digital protocol is used by APRS?

Select	Answer
A	802.11
B	AX.25
C	PACTOR
D	AMTOR

11. - E2E09

Which of the following HF digital modes uses variable-length coding for bandwidth efficiency?

Select	Answer
A	PSK31
B	MT63
C	RTTY
D	PACTOR

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

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	Transmit frequency is higher than the MUF
D	Receipt of a signal by more than one path

14. - E3C11

What does VOACAP software model?

Select	Answer
A	AC current and impedance
B	HF propagation
C	VHF radio propagation
D	AC voltage and impedance

15. - E4A15

What is an advantage of a period-measuring frequency counter over a direct-count type?

Select	Answer
A	It does not require an expensive high-precision time base
B	It can run on battery power for remote measurements
C	It provides improved resolution of low-frequency signals within a comparable time period
D	It can directly measure the modulation index of an FM transmitter

16. - E4B09

What is indicated if the current reading on an RF ammeter placed in series with the antenna feed line of a transmitter increases as the transmitter is tuned to resonance?

Select	Answer
A	There is more power going into the antenna
B	There is an impedance mismatch between the antenna and feed line
C	There is possibly a short to ground in the feed line
D	The transmitter is not properly neutralized

17. - E4C04

How is the noise figure of a receiver defined?

Select	Answer
A	The ratio in dB of the noise generated by the receiver to the theoretical minimum noise
B	The ratio of thermal noise to atmospheric noise
C	The ratio of the noise bandwidth in Hertz to the theoretical bandwidth of a resistive network
D	The ratio of atmospheric noise to phase noise

18. - E4D13

Which of the following can cause receiver desensitization?

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

19. - E4E15

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

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

20. - E5A14

What is the resonant frequency of a series RLC circuit if R is 22 ohms, L is 50 microhenrys and C is 40 picofarads?

Select	Answer
A	3.56 MHz
B	1.78 MHz
C	44.72 MHz
D	22.36 MHz

21. - E5B12

What is admittance?

Select	Answer
A	The turns ratio of a transformer
B	The term for the gain of a field effect transistor
C	The inverse of impedance
D	The unit used for Q factor

22. - E5C03

Which of the following represents an inductive reactance in polar coordinates?

Select	Answer
A	A negative real part
B	A positive phase angle
C	A positive real part
D	A negative phase angle

23. - E5D05

Which parasitic characteristic increases with conductor length?

Select	Answer
A	Permeability
B	Inductance
C	Malleability
D	Permittivity

24. - E6A17

What are the names of the three terminals of a field-effect transistor?

Select	Answer
A	Emitter, base, collector
B	Gate, drain, source
C	Gate 1, gate 2, drain
D	Emitter, base 1, base 2

25. - E6B05

What characteristic of a PIN diode makes it useful as an RF switch or attenuator?

Select	Answer
A	Ability to dissipate large amounts of power
B	A large region of intrinsic material
C	Extremely high reverse breakdown voltage
D	Reverse bias controls its forward voltage drop

26. - E6C14

What is the primary advantage of using a Programmable Gate Array (PGA) in a logic circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Many similar gates are less expensive than a mixture of gate types
B	All of these choices are correct
C	Complex logic functions can be created in a single integrated circuit
D	A PGA contains its own internal power supply

27. - E6D17

Why should core saturation of a conventional impedance matching transformer be avoided?

Select	Answer
A	Magnetic flux would increase with frequency
B	Harmonics and distortion could result
C	RF susceptance would increase
D	Temporary changes of the core permeability could result

28. - E6E01

Which of the following is true of a charge-coupled device (CCD)?

Select	Answer
A	Its phase shift changes rapidly with frequency
B	It is a CMOS analog-to-digital converter
C	It is used in a battery charger circuit
D	It samples an analog signal and passes it in stages from the input to the output

29. - E6F02

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

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

30. - E7A01

Which is a bi-stable circuit?

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

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

32. - E7C06

What are the distinguishing features of an elliptical filter?

Select	Answer
A	Gradual passband rolloff with extreme stop band ripple
B	Extremely flat response over its pass band with gradually rounded stop band corners
C	Gradual passband rolloff with minimal stop band ripple
D	Extremely sharp cutoff with one or more notches in the stop band

33. - E7D08

What type of circuit is shown in Figure E7-3?

Select	Answer
A	Grounded emitter amplifier
B	Emitter follower
C	Linear voltage regulator
D	Switching voltage regulator

34. - E7E02

What is the function of a reactance modulator?

Select	Answer
A	To produce PM signals by using an electrically variable inductance or capacitance
B	To produce AM signals by using an electrically variable inductance or capacitance
C	To produce PM signals by using an electrically variable resistance
D	To produce AM signals by using an electrically variable resistance

35. - E7F01

What is meant by direct digital conversion as applied to software defined radios?

Select	Answer
A	Incoming RF is digitized by an analog-to-digital converter without being mixed with a local oscillator signal
B	A switching mixer is used to generate I and Q signals directly from the RF input
C	Software is converted from source code to object code during operation of the receiver
D	Incoming RF is converted to a control voltage for a voltage controlled oscillator

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	47
B	94
C	0.21
D	24

37. - E7H09

What type of frequency synthesizer circuit uses a phase accumulator, lookup table, digital to analog converter, and a low-pass anti-alias filter?

Select	Answer
A	A hybrid synthesizer
B	A diode-switching matrix synthesizer
C	A phase locked loop synthesizer
D	A direct digital synthesizer

38. - E8A11

What type of information can be conveyed using digital waveforms?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	Data
C	Video signals
D	Human speech

39. - E8B08

What describes Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing?

Select	Answer
A	A frequency modulation technique which uses non-harmonically related frequencies
B	A digital mode for narrow band, slow speed transmissions
C	A digital modulation technique using subcarriers at frequencies chosen to avoid intersymbol interference
D	A bandwidth compression technique using Fourier transforms

40. - E8C06

What is the necessary bandwidth of a 170-hertz shift, 300-baud ASCII transmission?

Select	Answer
A	0.3 kHz
B	1.0 kHz
C	0.1 Hz
D	0.5 kHz

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

42. - E9A03

Why would one need to know the feed point impedance of an antenna?

Select	Answer
A	To measure the near-field radiation density from a transmitting antenna
B	To calculate the front-to-back ratio of the antenna
C	To match impedances in order to minimize standing wave ratio on the transmission line
D	To calculate the front-to-side ratio of the antenna

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	24 dB
D	15 dB

44. - E9C11

How is the far-field elevation pattern of a vertically polarized antenna affected by being mounted over seawater versus rocky ground?

Select	Answer
A	The high-angle radiation increases
B	The low-angle radiation increases
C	Both the high-angle and low-angle radiation decrease
D	The low-angle radiation decreases

45. - E9D06

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

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

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 omega match
C	The gamma match
D	The delta match

47. - E9F05

What is the approximate physical length of a solid polyethylene dielectric coaxial transmission line that is electrically one-quarter wavelength long at 14.1 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	20 meters
B	0.2 meters
C	3.5 meters
D	2.3 meters

48. - E9G05

What type of chart is shown in Figure E9-3?

Select	Answer
A	Azimuth angle radiation pattern chart
B	Smith chart
C	Elevation angle radiation pattern chart
D	Free space radiation directivity chart

49. - E9H07

Why is it advisable to use an RF attenuator on a receiver being used for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	It narrows the bandwidth of the received signal to improve signal to noise ratio
B	It compensates for the effects of an isotropic antenna, thereby improving directivity
C	It prevents receiver overload which could make it difficult to determine peaks or nulls
D	It reduces loss of received signals caused by antenna pattern nulls, thereby increasing sensitivity

50. - E0A10

What toxic material may be present in some electronic components such as high voltage capacitors and transformers?

Select	Answer
A	Polymorphic silicon
B	Polytetrafluroethylene
C	Polyethylene
D	Polychlorinated Biphenyls

Figure E7-3

Figure E7-4

Figure E9-2

Figure E9-3