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

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1. - E0A01

What is the primary function of an external earth connection or ground rod?

Select	Answer
A	Reduce RF current flow between pieces of equipment
B	Reduce received noise
C	Reduce RFI to telephones and home entertainment systems
D	Lightning protection

2. - E1A03

What is the maximum legal carrier frequency on the 20 meter band for transmitting USB AFSK digital signals having a 1 kHz bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	14.349 MHz
B	14.100 MHz
C	14.070 MHz
D	14.149 MHz

3. - E1B06

Which of the following additional rules apply if you are installing an amateur station antenna at a site at or near a public use airport?

Select	Answer
A	You must file an Environmental Impact Statement with the EPA before construction begins
B	You must obtain a construction permit from the airport zoning authority
C	You may have to notify the Federal Aviation Administration and register it with the FCC as required by Part 17 of the FCC rules
D	You must submit engineering drawings to the FAA

4. - E1C03

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

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

5. - E1D01

What is the definition of telemetry?

Select	Answer
A	Two-way transmissions of data
B	One-way transmission that initiates, modifies, or terminates the functions of a device at a distance
C	Two-way transmissions in excess of 1000 feet
D	One-way transmission of measurements at a distance from the measuring instrument

6. - E1E04

Which of the following best describes the Volunteer Examiner accreditation process?

Select	Answer
A	The procedure by which a VEC confirms that the VE applicant meets FCC requirements to serve as an examiner
B	Each General, Advanced and Amateur Extra Class operator is automatically accredited as a VE when the license is granted
C	The amateur operator applying must pass a VE examination administered by the FCC Enforcement Bureau
D	The prospective VE obtains accreditation from the FCC

7. - 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	53 MHz - 54 MHz
B	420 MHz - 430 MHz
C	440 MHz - 450 MHz
D	222 MHz - 223 MHz

8. - E2A12

What is the purpose of digital store-and-forward functions on an amateur radio satellite?

Select	Answer
A	To upload operational software for the transponder
B	To store digital messages in the satellite for later download by other stations
C	To relay messages between satellites
D	To delay download of telemetry between satellites

9. - E2B05

Which of the following describes the use of vestigial sideband in analog fast-scan TV transmissions?

Select	Answer
A	Vestigial sideband provides high frequency emphasis to sharpen the picture
B	Vestigial sideband reduces bandwidth while allowing for simple video detector circuitry
C	The vestigial sideband carries the audio information
D	The vestigial sideband contains chroma information

10. - E2C08

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

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

11. - E2D08

What type of packet frame is used to transmit APRS beacon data?

Select	Answer
A	Acknowledgement
B	Connect
C	Disconnect
D	Unnumbered Information

12. - E2E03

How is the timing of FT4 contacts organized?

Select	Answer
A	By exchanging ACK/NAK packets
B	It depends on the lunar phase
C	Alternating transmissions at 7.5 second intervals
D	Stations take turns on alternate days

13. - E3A14

What is meant by circularly polarized electromagnetic waves?

Select	Answer
A	Waves with a rotating electric field
B	Waves that circle the Earth
C	Waves with an electric field bent into a circular shape
D	Waves produced by a loop antenna

14. - E3B06

Which of the following amateur bands most frequently provides long-path propagation?

Select	Answer
A	10 meters
B	20 meters
C	80 meters
D	6 meters

15. - E3C09

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

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

16. - E4A08

Which of the following measures SWR?

Select	Answer
A	A spectrum analyzer
B	An ohmmeter
C	A Q meter
D	An antenna analyzer

17. - E4B05

What three test loads are used to calibrate an RF vector network analyzer?

Select	Answer
A	50 ohms, 75 ohms, and 90 ohms
B	Short circuit, open circuit, and 50 ohms
C	50 ohms through 1/8 wavelength, 1/4 wavelength, and 1/2 wavelength of coaxial cable
D	Short circuit, open circuit, and resonant circuit

18. - E4C02

Which of the following receiver circuits can be effective in eliminating interference from strong out-of-band signals?

Select	Answer
A	A notch filter
B	A properly adjusted product detector
C	A front-end filter or pre-selector
D	A narrow IF filter

19. - E4D02

Which of the following describes problems caused by poor dynamic range in a receiver?

Select	Answer
A	Spurious signals caused by cross-modulation and desensitization from strong adjacent signals
B	Oscillator instability requiring frequent retuning and loss of ability to recover the opposite sideband
C	Cross-modulation of the desired signal and insufficient audio power to operate the speaker
D	Oscillator instability and severe audio distortion of all but the strongest received signals

20. - E4E03

Which of the following signals might a receiver noise blanker be able to remove from desired signals?

Select	Answer
A	Signals that appear across a wide bandwidth
B	Signals that appear at one IF but not another
C	Signals that have a sharply peaked frequency distribution
D	Signals that are constant at all IF levels

21. - E5A09

How is the Q of an RLC parallel resonant circuit calculated?

Select	Answer
A	Reactance of either the inductance or capacitance multiplied by the resistance
B	Reactance of the inductance multiplied by the reactance of the capacitance
C	Reactance of either the inductance or capacitance divided by the resistance
D	Resistance divided by the reactance of either the inductance or capacitance

22. - E5B02

What letter is commonly used to represent susceptance?

Select	Answer
A	Y
B	B
C	G
D	X

23. - E5C04

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

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

24. - E5D13

How many watts are 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

25. - E6A06

What is the beta of a bipolar junction transistor?

Select	Answer
A	The switching speed
B	The breakdown voltage of the base to collector junction
C	The change in collector current with respect to base current
D	The frequency at which the current gain is reduced to 0.707

26. - E6B01

What is the most useful characteristic of a Zener diode?

Select	Answer
A	A constant voltage drop under conditions of varying current
B	A negative resistance region
C	A constant current drop under conditions of varying voltage
D	An internal capacitance that varies with the applied voltage

27. - E6C04

Which of the following is an advantage of BiCMOS logic?

Select	Answer
A	It has the high input impedance of CMOS and the low output impedance of bipolar transistors
B	It is immune to electrostatic damage
C	Its simplicity results in much less expensive devices than standard CMOS
D	All these choices are correct

28. - E6D09

What devices are commonly used as VHF and UHF parasitic suppressors at the input and output terminals of a transistor HF amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	Ferrite beads
B	Electrolytic capacitors
C	Steel-core toroids
D	Butterworth filters

29. - 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 dioxide
C	Silicon
D	Silicon nitride

30. - E6F04

What is the photovoltaic effect?

Select	Answer
A	The conversion of voltage to current when exposed to light
B	The tendency of a battery to discharge when exposed to light
C	The conversion of light to electrical energy
D	The conversion of electrical energy to mechanical energy

31. - E7A09

What logical operation is performed by an exclusive NOR gate?

Select	Answer
A	It produces logic 0 at its output only if all inputs are logic 0
B	It produces logic 0 at its output if only one input is logic 1
C	It produces logic 1 at its output if only one input is logic 1
D	It produces logic 1 at its output only if all inputs are logic 1

32. - E7B18

What is a characteristic of a grounded-grid amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	Low bandwidth
B	Low input impedance
C	High power gain
D	High filament voltage

33. - E7C12

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 provide balanced input and output
B	The Q of Pi-networks can be controlled
C	Pi-networks are more stable
D	L-networks cannot perform impedance transformation

34. - E7D09

What is the main reason to use a charge controller with a solar power system?

Select	Answer
A	Control of electrolyte levels during battery discharge
B	Prevention of battery undercharge
C	Matching of day and night charge rates
D	Prevention of battery damage due to overcharge

35. - E7E03

What is a frequency discriminator stage in a FM receiver?

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

36. - 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 least 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 least half the rate of the highest frequency component of the signal

37. - E7G07

What magnitude of voltage gain can be expected from the circuit in Figure E73 when R1 is 10 ohms and RF is 470 ohms?

Select	Answer
A	94
B	0.21
C	47
D	24

38. - E7H12

Which of the following must be done to ensure that a crystal oscillator provides the frequency specified by the crystal manufacturer?

Select	Answer
A	Bias the crystal at a specified current
B	Bias the crystal at a specified voltage
C	Provide the crystal with a specified parallel inductance
D	Provide the crystal with a specified parallel capacitance

39. - E8A04

What is "dither" with respect to analog-to-digital converters?

Select	Answer
A	A method of decimation by randomly skipping samples
B	An abnormal condition where the converter cannot settle on a value to represent the signal
C	A small amount of noise added to the input signal to allow more precise representation of a signal over time
D	An error caused by irregular quantization step size

40. - E8B07

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing is a technique used for which type of amateur communication?

Select	Answer
A	Extremely low-power contacts
B	OFDM signals are not allowed on amateur bands
C	High-speed digital modes
D	EME

41. - E8C06

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

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

42. - E8D06

What is the advantage of including parity bits in ASCII characters?

Select	Answer
A	The signal can overpower interfering signals
B	Some types of errors can be detected
C	Faster transmission rate
D	Foreign language characters can be sent

43. - E9A05

What is included in the total resistance of an antenna system?

Select	Answer
A	Radiation resistance plus space impedance
B	Radiation resistance plus transmission resistance
C	Radiation resistance plus loss resistance
D	Transmission-line resistance plus radiation resistance

44. - E9B09

What type of computer program technique is commonly used for modeling antennas?

Select	Answer
A	Mutual impedance analysis
B	Method of Moments
C	Graphical analysis
D	Calculus differentiation with respect to physical properties

45. - 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	An end-fed folded dipole antenna
D	A portable antenna erected using two push support poles

46. - E9D05

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

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

47. - E9E06

Which of these feed line impedances would be suitable for constructing a quarter-wave Q-section for matching a 100-ohm loop to 50-ohm feed line?

Select	Answer
A	62 ohms
B	75 ohms
C	450 ohms
D	50 ohms

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 index of shielding for coaxial cable
C	The velocity of the wave in the transmission line multiplied by the velocity of light in a vacuum
D	The velocity of the wave in the transmission line divided by the velocity of light in a vacuum

49. - E9G03

Which of the following is often determined using a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Beam headings and radiation patterns
B	Impedance and SWR values in transmission lines
C	Trigonometric functions
D	Satellite azimuth and elevation bearings

50. - E9H04

What is an advantage of placing a grounded electrostatic shield around a small loop direction-finding antenna?

Select	Answer
A	It adds capacitive loading, increasing the bandwidth of the antenna
B	It eliminates unbalanced capacitive coupling to the surroundings, improving the nulls
C	It eliminates tracking errors caused by strong out-of-band signals
D	It increases signal strength by providing a better match to the feed line