US Amateur Radio - Amateur Extra (Element 4, 2020-2024) Practice Test

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1. - E0A05

What is one of the potential hazards of operating in the amateur radio microwave bands?

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

2. - E1A05

What is the maximum power output permitted on the 60 meter band?

Select	Answer
A	100 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to the gain of a half-wave dipole
B	50 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to a dipole
C	50 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to an isotropic radiator
D	100 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to an isotropic radiator

3. - E1B11

What does PRB-1 require of regulations affecting amateur radio?

Select	Answer
A	Amateur radio operations must be permitted in any private residence
B	No limitations may be placed on antenna size or placement
C	Use of wireless devices in a vehicle is exempt from regulation
D	Reasonable accommodations of amateur radio must be made

4. - E1C03

How do the control operator responsibilities of a station under automatic control differ from one under local control?

Select	Answer
A	Under automatic control the control operator is not required to be present at the control point
B	Under local control a control operator is not required to be present at a control point
C	Under automatic control there is no control operator
D	Under local control there is no control operator

5. - E1D07

Which HF amateur bands have frequencies authorized for space stations?

Select	Answer
A	All HF bands
B	Only the 40, 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10 meter bands
C	Only the 40, 20, 17, 15, and 10 meter bands
D	Only the 40, 30, 20, 15, 12, and 10 meter bands

6. - E1E02

Who does Part 97 task with maintaining the pools of questions for all U.S. amateur license examinations?

Select	Answer
A	The ARRL
B	The VECs
C	The VEs
D	The FCC

7. - E1F06

Under what circumstances might the FCC issue a Special Temporary Authority (STA) to an amateur station?

Select	Answer
A	To provide for experimental amateur communications
B	To allow regular operation on Land Mobile channels
C	To provide additional spectrum for personal use
D	To provide temporary operation while awaiting normal licensing

8. - E2A13

Which of the following techniques is normally used by low Earth orbiting digital satellites to relay messages around the world?

Select	Answer
A	Node hopping
B	Multi-satellite relaying
C	Store-and-forward
D	Digipeating

9. - 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	30
D	60

10. - E2C12

What technique do individual nodes use to form a mesh network?

Select	Answer
A	Custom code plugs for the local trunking systems
B	Discovery and link establishment protocols
C	Forward error correction and Viterbi codes
D	Acting as store-and-forward digipeaters

11. - E2D09

What type of modulation is used for JT65 contacts?

Select	Answer
A	Multi-tone AFSK
B	RTTY
C	IEEE 802.11
D	PSK

12. - E2E09

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

Select	Answer
A	MT63
B	RTTY
C	PSK31
D	PACTOR

13. - E3A10

Which type of atmospheric structure can create a path for microwave propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Wind shear
B	The jet stream
C	Dust devil
D	Temperature inversion

14. - E3B04

What is meant by the terms "extraordinary" and "ordinary" waves?

Select	Answer
A	Independent waves created in the ionosphere that are elliptically polarized
B	Refracted rays and reflected waves
C	Long-path and short-path waves
D	Extraordinary waves describe rare long-skip propagation compared to ordinary waves, which travel shorter distances

15. - E3C09

How does the intensity of an X3 flare compare to that of an X2 flare?

Select	Answer
A	Twice as great
B	50 percent greater
C	10 percent greater
D	Four times as great

16. - E4A09

Which of the following is good practice when using an oscilloscope probe?

Select	Answer
A	Never use a high-impedance probe to measure a low-impedance circuit
B	All these choices are correct
C	Never use a DC-coupled probe to measure an AC circuit
D	Keep the signal ground connection of the probe as short as possible

17. - E4B03

Which S parameter is equivalent to forward gain?

Select	Answer
A	S11
B	S22
C	S12
D	S21

18. - E4C13

How does a narrow-band roofing filter affect receiver performance?

Select	Answer
A	It improves sensitivity by reducing front end noise
B	It improves dynamic range by attenuating strong signals near the receive frequency
C	All these choices are correct
D	It improves intelligibility by using low Q circuitry to reduce ringing

19. - E4D11

Why are odd-order intermodulation products, created within a receiver, of particular interest compared to other products?

Select	Answer
A	Odd-order products are an indication of poor image rejection
B	Odd-order products of two signals in the band of interest are also likely to be within the band
C	Odd-order products overload the IF filters
D	Odd-order intermodulation produces three products for every input signal within the band of interest

20. - E4E09

What undesirable effect can occur when using an IF noise blanker?

Select	Answer
A	Received audio in the speech range might have an echo effect
B	Nearby signals may appear to be excessively wide even if they meet emission standards
C	FM signals can no longer be demodulated
D	The audio frequency bandwidth of the received signal might be compressed

21. - E5A03

What is the magnitude of the impedance of a series RLC circuit at resonance?

Select	Answer
A	High, as compared to the circuit resistance
B	Approximately equal to circuit resistance
C	Approximately equal to inductive reactance
D	Approximately equal to capacitive reactance

22. - 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	110 seconds
B	55 seconds
C	220 seconds
D	440 seconds

23. - E5C01

Which of the following represents capacitive reactance in rectangular notation?

Select	Answer
A	Omega
B	+jX
C	-jX
D	Delta

24. - E5D07

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

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

25. - 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 N-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 P-type semiconductor material can conduct current

26. - E6B06

Which of the following is a common use of a Schottky diode?

Select	Answer
A	As a variable capacitance in an automatic frequency control circuit
B	As a rectifier in high current power supplies
C	As a VHF/UHF mixer or detector
D	As a constant voltage reference in a power supply

27. - E6C09

What is a Programmable Logic Device (PLD)?

Select	Answer
A	Programmable equipment used for testing digital logic integrated circuits
B	A logic circuit that can be modified during use
C	A type of transistor whose gain can be changed by digital logic circuits
D	A programmable collection of logic gates and circuits in a single integrated circuit

28. - E6D03

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

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

29. - E6E04

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

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

30. - E6F06

Which of these materials is most commonly used to create photoconductive devices?

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

31. - E7A05

Which of the following is a circuit that continuously alternates between two states without an external clock?

Select	Answer
A	Monostable multivibrator
B	J-K flip-flop
C	Astable multivibrator
D	T flip-flop

32. - E7B11

In Figure E7-1, what is the purpose of R3?

Select	Answer
A	Output load resistor
B	Emitter bypass
C	Fixed bias
D	Self bias

33. - E7C04

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

Select	Answer
A	Reactive currents are dissipated in matched resistances
B	It cancels the reactive part of the impedance and changes the resistive part to a desired value
C	It introduces negative resistance to cancel the resistive part of impedance
D	It introduces transconductance to cancel the reactive part of impedance

34. - E7D10

What is the primary reason that a high-frequency switching type high-voltage power supply can be both less expensive and lighter in weight than a conventional power supply?

Select	Answer
A	The high frequency inverter design uses much smaller transformers and filter components for an equivalent power output
B	It uses a diode bridge rectifier for increased output
C	It uses a large power factor compensation capacitor to recover power from the unused portion of the AC cycle
D	The inverter design does not require any output filtering

35. - E7E09

What occurs when an excessive amount of signal energy reaches a mixer circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Spurious mixer products are generated
B	Automatic limiting occurs
C	Mixer blanking occurs
D	A beat frequency is generated

36. - E7F04

What is a common method of generating an SSB signal using digital signal processing?

Select	Answer
A	Varying quartz crystal characteristics emulated in digital form
B	Mixing products are converted to voltages and subtracted by adder circuits
C	A frequency synthesizer removes the unwanted sidebands
D	Signals are combined in quadrature phase relationship

37. - E7G12

What is an operational amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	A RF amplifier used in the UHF and microwave regions
B	An amplifier used to increase the average output of frequency modulated amateur signals to the legal limit
C	A high-gain, direct-coupled differential amplifier with very high input impedance and very low output impedance
D	A digital audio amplifier whose characteristics are determined by components external to the amplifier

38. - E7H13

Which of the following is a technique for providing highly accurate and stable oscillators needed for microwave transmission and reception?

Select	Answer
A	Use a rubidium stabilized reference oscillator
B	Use a temperature-controlled high Q dielectric resonator
C	Use a GPS signal reference
D	All these choices are correct

39. - E8A03

What type of wave does a Fourier analysis show to be made up of sine waves of a given fundamental frequency plus all its harmonics?

Select	Answer
A	A sawtooth wave
B	A square wave
C	A sine wave
D	A cosine wave

40. - E8B02

How does the modulation index of a phase-modulated emission vary with RF carrier frequency?

Select	Answer
A	It increases as the RF carrier frequency increases
B	It varies with the square root of the RF carrier frequency
C	It does not depend on the RF carrier frequency
D	It decreases as the RF carrier frequency increases

41. - E8C12

What factors affect the bandwidth of a transmitted CW signal?

Select	Answer
A	Modulation index and output power
B	IF bandwidth and Q
C	All these choices are correct
D	Keying speed and shape factor (rise and fall time)

42. - E8D11

What is one advantage of using ASCII code for data communications?

Select	Answer
A	It uses one character as a shift code to send numeric and special characters
B	It is possible to transmit both upper and lower case text
C	It includes built-in error correction features
D	It contains fewer information bits per character than any other code

43. - E9A03

What is the radiation resistance of an antenna?

Select	Answer
A	The resistance in the atmosphere that an antenna must overcome to be able to radiate a signal
B	The specific impedance of the antenna
C	The value of a resistance that would dissipate the same amount of power as that radiated from an antenna
D	The combined losses of the antenna elements and feed line

44. - E9B10

What is the principle of a Method of Moments analysis?

Select	Answer
A	A wire is modeled as a series of segments, each having a uniform value of current
B	A wire is modeled as a single sine-wave voltage source
C	A wire is modeled as a single sine-wave current generator
D	A wire is modeled as a series of segments, each having a distinct value of voltage across it

45. - E9C01

What is the radiation pattern of two 1/4-wavelength vertical antennas spaced 1/2-wavelength apart and fed 180 degrees out of phase?

Select	Answer
A	Omni-directional
B	A figure-8 broadside to the axis of the array
C	A figure-8 oriented along the axis of the array
D	Cardioid

46. - E9D11

Which of the following conductors would be best for minimizing losses in a station's RF ground system?

Select	Answer
A	Stranded wire
B	Wide flat copper strap
C	Resistive wire, such as spark plug wire
D	Solid wire

47. - E9E01

What system matches a higher-impedance transmission line to a lower-impedance antenna by connecting the line to the driven element in two places spaced a fraction of a wavelength each side of element center?

Select	Answer
A	The omega matching system
B	The stub matching system
C	The delta matching system
D	The gamma matching system

48. - E9F01

What is the velocity factor of a transmission line?

Select	Answer
A	The ratio of the characteristic impedance of the line to the terminating impedance
B	The velocity of the wave in the transmission line multiplied by the velocity of light in a vacuum
C	The index of shielding for coaxial cable
D	The velocity of the wave in the transmission line divided by the velocity of light in a vacuum

49. - E9G08

What is the process of normalization with regard to a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Reassigning reactance values with regard to the resistance axis
B	Reassigning resistance values with regard to the reactance axis
C	Reassigning prime center with regard to the reactance axis
D	Reassigning impedance values with regard to the prime center

50. - E9H01

When constructing a Beverage antenna, which of the following factors should be included in the design to achieve good performance at the desired frequency?

Select	Answer
A	Its overall length must not exceed 1/4 wavelength
B	It must be mounted more than 1 wavelength above ground
C	It should be one or more wavelengths long
D	It should be configured as a four-sided loop

Figure E7-1