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

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1. - E1A01

When using a transceiver that displays the carrier frequency of phone signals, which of the following displayed frequencies represents the highest frequency at which a properly adjusted USB emission will be totally within the band?

Select	Answer
A	3 kHz below the upper band edge
B	The exact upper band edge
C	300 Hz below the upper band edge
D	1 kHz below the upper band edge

2. - E1B05

What is the National Radio Quiet Zone?

Select	Answer
A	An area in Florida surrounding Cape Canaveral
B	An area surrounding the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
C	An area in Puerto Rico surrounding the Arecibo Radio Telescope
D	An area in New Mexico surrounding the White Sands Test Area

3. - E1C07

What is meant by local control?

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

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. - E1E09

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

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

6. - E1F11

Which of the following best describes one of the standards that must be met by an external RF power amplifier if it is to qualify for a grant of FCC certification?

Select	Answer
A	It must produce full legal output when driven by not more than 5 watts of mean RF input power
B	It must satisfy the FCC's spurious emission standards when operated at the lesser of 1500 watts or its full output power
C	It must be capable of external RF switching between its input and output networks
D	It must exhibit a gain of 0 dB or less over its full output range

7. - E2A03

What is the orbital period of an Earth satellite?

Select	Answer
A	The time it takes for a satellite to travel from perigee to apogee
B	The point of minimum height of a satellite's orbit
C	The time it takes for a satellite to complete one revolution around the Earth
D	The point of maximum height of a satellite's orbit

8. - E2B18

On which of the following frequencies is one likely to find FM ATV transmissions?

Select	Answer
A	29.6 MHz
B	52.525 MHz
C	14.230 MHz
D	1255 MHz

9. - E2C11

How should you generally identify your station when attempting to contact a DX station during a contest or in a pileup?

Select	Answer
A	Send your full call sign and grid square
B	Send the call sign of the DX station three times, the words "this is", then your call sign three times
C	Send your full call sign once or twice
D	Send only the last two letters of your call sign until you make contact

10. - E2D02

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

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

11. - E2E03

How is the timing of JT65 contacts organized?

Select	Answer
A	By exchanging ACK/NAK packets
B	It depends on the lunar phase
C	Alternating transmissions at 1 minute intervals
D	Stations take turns on alternate days

12. - E3A15

What is an electromagnetic wave?

Select	Answer
A	A wave consisting of two magnetic fields at right angles to each other
B	A wave of alternating current, in the core of an electromagnet
C	A wave consisting of an electric field and a magnetic field oscillating at right angles to each other
D	A wave consisting of two electric fields at parallel right angles to each other

13. - E3B10

What is the cause of gray-line propagation?

Select	Answer
A	At midday, the Sun super heats the ionosphere causing increased refraction of radio waves
B	In darkness, solar absorption drops greatly while atmospheric ionization remains steady
C	At mid-afternoon, the Sun heats the ionosphere decreasing radio wave refraction and the MUF
D	At twilight and sunrise, D-layer absorption is low while E-layer and F-layer propagation remains high

14. - E3C05

What orientation of Bz (B sub z) increases the likelihood that incoming particles from the Sun will cause disturbed conditions?

Select	Answer
A	Southward
B	Northward
C	Eastward
D	Westward

15. - E4A10

Which of the following displays multiple digital signal states simultaneously?

Select	Answer
A	Modulation monitor
B	Network analyzer
C	Logic analyzer
D	Bit error rate tester

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	25 watts
D	125 watts

17. - E4C08

An SDR receiver is overloaded when input signals exceed what level?

Select	Answer
A	One-half the maximum sample rate
B	The reference voltage of the analog-to-digital converter
C	One-half the maximum sampling buffer size
D	The maximum count value of the analog-to-digital converter

18. - E4D09

What is the purpose of the preselector in a communications receiver?

Select	Answer
A	To allow selection of the optimum RF amplifier device
B	To store often-used frequencies
C	To provide a range of AGC time constants
D	To increase rejection of unwanted signals

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	Use of braided shielding material
C	Low inductance ground connections at both ends of the shield
D	Tying all ground connections to a common point resulting in differential mode currents in the shield

20. - E5A12

What is the half-power bandwidth of a parallel resonant circuit that has a resonant frequency of 3.7 MHz and a Q of 118?

Select	Answer
A	15.7 kHz
B	436.6 kHz
C	31.4 kHz
D	218.3 kHz

21. - E5B05

What happens to the magnitude of a reactance when it is converted to a susceptance?

Select	Answer
A	It is unchanged
B	It is shifted by 90 degrees
C	The magnitude of the susceptance is the reciprocal of the magnitude of the reactance
D	The sign is reversed

22. - E5C13

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

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

23. - E5D18

How many watts are consumed in a circuit having a power factor of 0.71 if the apparent power is 500VA?

Select	Answer
A	1.42 mW
B	252 W
C	704 W
D	355 W

24. - E6A15

Which semiconductor material contains excess holes in the outer shell of electrons?

Select	Answer
A	N-type
B	Bipolar-type
C	Superconductor-type
D	P-type

25. - E6B05

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

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

26. - E6C04

What is the primary advantage of tri-state logic?

Select	Answer
A	High speed operation
B	Low power consumption
C	Ability to connect many device outputs to a common bus
D	More efficient arithmetic operations

27. - E6D06

What core material property determines the inductance of a toroidal inductor?

Select	Answer
A	Reactivity
B	Resistance
C	Permeability
D	Thermal impedance

28. - E6E04

Which is the most common input and output impedance of circuits that use MMICs?

Select	Answer
A	10 ohms
B	50 ohms
C	450 ohms
D	300 ohms

29. - E6F03

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

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

30. - E7A06

What is a characteristic of a monostable multivibrator?

Select	Answer
A	It switches momentarily to the opposite binary state and then returns to its original state after a set time
B	It maintains a constant output voltage, regardless of variations in the input voltage
C	It produces a continuous square wave oscillating between 1 and 0
D	It stores one bit of data in either a 0 or 1 state

31. - E7B08

How can an RF power amplifier be neutralized?

Select	Answer
A	By reducing the driving power
B	By feeding an in-phase component of the output back to the input
C	By increasing the driving power
D	By feeding a 180-degree out-of-phase portion of the output back to the input

32. - E7C02

Which of the following is a property of a T-network with series capacitors and a parallel shunt inductor?

Select	Answer
A	It is a band-pass filter
B	It is a notch filter
C	It is a low-pass filter
D	It is a high-pass filter

33. - E7D12

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

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

34. - E7E03

How does an analog phase modulator function?

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

35. - E7F05

How frequently must an analog signal be sampled by an analog-to-digital converter so that the signal can be accurately reproduced?

Select	Answer
A	At twice the rate of the highest frequency component of the signal
B	At the same rate as the highest frequency component of the signal
C	At four times the rate of the highest frequency component of the signal
D	At half the rate of the highest frequency component of the signal

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	76
B	0.03
C	38
D	1

37. - E7H07

How can an oscillator's microphonic responses be reduced?

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

38. - E8A13

Which of these methods is commonly used to convert analog signals to digital signals?

Select	Answer
A	Phase reversal
B	Sequential sampling
C	Level shifting
D	Harmonic regeneration

39. - E8B05

What is the deviation ratio of an FM-phone signal having a maximum frequency swing of plus-or-minus 5 kHz when the maximum modulation frequency is 3 kHz?

Select	Answer
A	60
B	1.67
C	0.167
D	0.6

40. - E8C11

What is the relationship between symbol rate and baud?

Select	Answer
A	Baud is twice the symbol rate
B	They are the same
C	Baud is only used for RTTY
D	Symbol rate is only used for packet-based modes

41. - E8D01

Why are received spread spectrum signals resistant to interference?

Select	Answer
A	Signals not using the spread spectrum algorithm are suppressed in the receiver
B	The receiver is always equipped with a digital blanker
C	If interference is detected by the receiver it will signal the transmitter to change frequencies
D	The high power used by a spread spectrum transmitter keeps its signal from being easily overpowered

42. - E9A18

What term describes station output, taking into account all gains and losses?

Select	Answer
A	Power factor
B	Effective radiated power
C	Half-power bandwidth
D	Apparent power

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

44. - E9C12

Which of the following describes an extended double Zepp antenna?

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

45. - E9D13

What usually occurs if a Yagi antenna is designed solely for maximum forward gain?

Select	Answer
A	The SWR is reduced
B	The front-to-back ratio decreases
C	The frequency response is widened over the whole frequency band
D	The front-to-back ratio increases

46. - E9E10

Which of these choices is an effective way to match an antenna with a 100 ohm feed point impedance to a 50 ohm coaxial cable feed line?

Select	Answer
A	Connect a 1/4-wavelength open stub of 300 ohm twin-lead in parallel with the coaxial feed line where it connects to the antenna
B	Connect 1/2 wavelength shorted stub of 75 ohm cable in parallel with the 50 ohm cable where it attaches to the antenna
C	Insert a 1/4-wavelength piece of 75 ohm coaxial cable transmission line in series between the antenna terminals and the 50 ohm feed cable
D	Insert a 1/2 wavelength piece of 300 ohm twin-lead in series between the antenna terminals and the 50 ohm feed cable

47. - E9F02

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

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

48. - E9G04

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

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

49. - E9H11

What characteristic of a cardioid pattern antenna is useful for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	A very sharp single null
B	A very sharp peak
C	Broad band response
D	High-radiation angle

50. - E0A04

When evaluating a site with multiple transmitters operating at the same time, the operators and licensees of which transmitters are responsible for mitigating over-exposure situations?

Select	Answer
A	Each transmitter that produces 5 percent or more of its MPE limit at accessible locations
B	Only the most powerful transmitter
C	Each transmitter operating with a duty-cycle greater than 50 percent
D	Only commercial transmitters

Figure E7-4