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

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1. - E0A09

Which insulating material commonly used as a thermal conductor for some types of electronic devices is extremely toxic if broken or crushed and the particles are accidentally inhaled?

Select	Answer
A	Beryllium Oxide
B	Zinc oxide
C	Uranium Hexafluoride
D	Mica

2. - E1A04

With your transceiver displaying the carrier frequency of phone signals, you hear a DX station calling CQ on 3.601 MHz LSB. Is it legal to return the call using lower sideband on the same frequency?

Select	Answer
A	No, the sideband will extend beyond the edge of the phone band segment
B	No, U.S. stations are not permitted to use phone emissions below 3.610 MHz
C	Yes, because the displayed frequency is within the 75 meter phone band segment
D	Yes, because the DX station initiated the contact

3. - E1B12

What must the control operator of a repeater operating in the 70 cm band do if a radiolocation system experiences interference from that repeater?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	Reduce the repeater antenna HAAT (Height Above Average Terrain)
C	File an FAA NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) with the repeater system's ERP, call sign, and six-character grid locator
D	Cease operation or make changes to the repeater to mitigate the interference

4. - E1C01

What is the maximum bandwidth for a data emission on 60 meters?

Select	Answer
A	60 Hz
B	2.8 kHz
C	170 Hz
D	1.5 kHz

5. - E1D06

What is the maximum permitted transmitter output power when operating a model craft by telecommand?

Select	Answer
A	1 watt
B	2 watts
C	100 watts
D	5 watts

6. - E1E05

What is the minimum passing score on all amateur operator license examinations?

Select	Answer
A	Minimum passing score of 80%
B	Minimum passing score of 77%
C	Minimum passing score of 70%
D	Minimum passing score of 74%

7. - E1F09

Which of the following conditions apply when transmitting spread spectrum emissions?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	The transmission must not be used to obscure the meaning of any communication
C	A station transmitting SS emission must not cause harmful interference to other stations employing other authorized emissions
D	The transmitting station must be in an area regulated by the FCC or in a country that permits SS emissions

8. - E2A10

What type of satellite appears to stay in one position in the sky?

Select	Answer
A	Geostationary
B	Geomagnetic
C	LEO
D	HEO

9. - E2B11

What is the function of the Vertical Interval Signaling (VIS) code sent as part of an SSTV transmission?

Select	Answer
A	To identify the SSTV mode being used
B	To identify the call sign of the station transmitting
C	To provide vertical synchronization
D	To lock the color burst oscillator in color SSTV images

10. - E2C09

What type of equipment is commonly used to implement an amateur radio mesh network?

Select	Answer
A	A 440 MHz transceiver with a 9600 baud modem
B	A 2 meter VHF transceiver with a 1200 baud modem
C	A wireless router running custom firmware
D	An optical cable connection between the USB ports of 2 separate computers

11. - E2D11

Which of the following data are used by the APRS network to communicate station location?

Select	Answer
A	Latitude and longitude
B	Time and frequency
C	Polar coordinates
D	Radio direction finding spectrum analysis

12. - E2E04

What is indicated when one of the ellipses in an FSK crossed-ellipse display suddenly disappears?

Select	Answer
A	The receiver has drifted 5 kHz from the desired receive frequency
B	The mark and space signal have been inverted
C	One of the signal filters is saturated
D	Selective fading has occurred

13. - E3A05

Tropospheric propagation of microwave signals often occurs in association with what phenomenon?

Select	Answer
A	Grayline
B	Warm and cold fronts
C	Lightning discharges
D	Sprites and jets

14. - E3B11

At what time of day can sporadic E propagation occur?

Select	Answer
A	Any time
B	Only in hours of darkness
C	Only around sunset
D	Only around sunset and sunrise

15. - E3C04

What does the value of Bz (B sub Z) represent?

Select	Answer
A	Duration of long-delayed echoes
B	Critical frequency for vertical transmissions
C	Geomagnetic field stability
D	Direction and strength of the interplanetary magnetic field

16. - E4A04

How is the compensation of an oscilloscope probe typically adjusted?

Select	Answer
A	A high frequency sine wave is displayed and the probe is adjusted for maximum amplitude
B	A DC voltage standard is displayed and the probe is adjusted until the displayed voltage is accurate
C	A frequency standard is displayed and the probe is adjusted until the deflection time is accurate
D	A square wave is displayed and the probe is adjusted until the horizontal portions of the displayed wave are as nearly flat as possible

17. - E4B07

What do the subscripts of S parameters represent?

Select	Answer
A	The relative time between measurements
B	The port or ports at which measurements are made
C	Relative quality of the data
D	Frequency order of the measurements

18. - E4C02

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

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

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	Cross-modulation of the desired signal and insufficient audio power to operate the speaker
C	Oscillator instability requiring frequent retuning and loss of ability to recover the opposite sideband
D	Oscillator instability and severe audio distortion of all but the strongest received signals

20. - E4E11

What could cause local AM broadcast band signals to combine to generate spurious signals in the MF or HF bands?

Select	Answer
A	Your station receiver IF amplifier stage is defective
B	Nearby corroded metal joints are mixing and re-radiating the broadcast signals
C	You are receiving skywave signals from a distant station
D	One or more of the broadcast stations is transmitting an over-modulated signal

21. - E5A02

What is resonance in an LC or RLC circuit?

Select	Answer
A	The frequency at which the capacitive reactance equals the inductive reactance
B	The frequency at which the reactive impedance equals the resistive impedance
C	The lowest frequency that will pass current
D	The highest frequency that will pass current

22. - E5B05

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

Select	Answer
A	It is shifted by 90 degrees
B	It is unchanged
C	It becomes the reciprocal
D	The sign is reversed

23. - E5C12

Which point on Figure E5-1 best represents the impedance of a series circuit consisting of a 300-ohm resistor and a 19-picofarad capacitor at 21.200 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	Point 8
B	Point 7
C	Point 1
D	Point 3

24. - E5D02

Why is it important to keep lead lengths short for components used in circuits for VHF and above?

Select	Answer
A	To maintain component lifetime
B	All these choices are correct
C	To avoid unwanted inductive reactance
D	To increase the thermal time constant

25. - E6A06

What is the beta of a bipolar junction transistor?

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

26. - E6B05

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

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

27. - E6C04

Which of the following is an advantage of BiCMOS logic?

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

28. - E6D02

What is the equivalent circuit of a quartz crystal?

Select	Answer
A	Motional capacitance, motional inductance, loss resistance, and a capacitor representing electrode and stray capacitance all in parallel
B	Motional capacitance, motional inductance, and loss resistance in series, all in parallel with a shunt capacitor representing electrode and stray capacitance
C	Motional inductance and loss resistance in series, paralleled with motional capacitance and a capacitor representing electrode and stray capacitance
D	Motional capacitance, motional inductance, loss resistance, and a capacitor representing electrode and stray capacitance all in series

29. - E6E07

What type of transmission line is used for connections to MMICs?

Select	Answer
A	Microstrip
B	Parallel wire
C	Miniature coax
D	Circular waveguide

30. - E6F09

What is the efficiency of a photovoltaic cell?

Select	Answer
A	The open-circuit voltage divided by the short-circuit current under full illumination
B	Cost per kilowatt-hour generated
C	The output RF power divided by the input DC power
D	The relative fraction of light that is converted to current

31. - E7A05

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

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

32. - E7B12

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

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

33. - E7C10

Which of the following filters would be the best choice for use in a 2 meter band repeater duplexer?

Select	Answer
A	A DSP filter
B	An L-C filter
C	A crystal filter
D	A cavity filter

34. - E7D04

Which of the following types of linear voltage regulator usually make the most efficient use of the primary power source?

Select	Answer
A	A shunt regulator
B	A series regulator
C	A shunt current source
D	A series current source

35. - E7E10

How does a diode envelope detector function?

Select	Answer
A	By rectification and filtering of RF signals
B	By sensing the change of reactance in the diode with respect to frequency
C	By mixing signals with noise in the transition region of the diode
D	By breakdown of the Zener voltage

36. - E7F02

What kind of digital signal processing audio filter is used to remove unwanted noise from a received SSB signal?

Select	Answer
A	A phase-inverting filter
B	A Hilbert-transform filter
C	An adaptive filter
D	A crystal-lattice filter

37. - E7G09

What will be the output voltage of the circuit shown in Figure E7-3 if R1 is 1000 ohms, RF is 10,000 ohms, and 0.23 volts DC is applied to the input?

Select	Answer
A	0.23 volts
B	-0.23 volts
C	-2.3 volts
D	2.3 volts

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

39. - E8A08

Why would a direct or flash conversion analog-to-digital converter be useful for a software defined radio?

Select	Answer
A	Immunity to out-of-sequence coding reduces spurious responses
B	Very high speed allows digitizing high frequencies
C	All these choices are correct
D	Very low power consumption decreases frequency drift

40. - E8B03

What is the modulation index of an FM-phone signal having a maximum frequency deviation of 3000 Hz either side of the carrier frequency when the modulating frequency is 1000 Hz?

Select	Answer
A	0.3
B	3000
C	3
D	1000

41. - E8C12

What factors affect the bandwidth of a transmitted CW signal?

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

42. - E8D03

How does the spread spectrum technique of frequency hopping work?

Select	Answer
A	If interference is detected by the receiver it will signal the transmitter to wait until the frequency is clear
B	A binary bit stream is used to shift the phase of an RF carrier very rapidly in a pseudorandom sequence
C	The frequency of the transmitted signal is changed very rapidly according to a pseudorandom sequence also used by the receiving station
D	If interference is detected by the receiver it will signal the transmitter to change frequencies

43. - E9A01

What is an isotropic antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A horizontally polarized antenna used to compare Yagi antennas
B	A theoretical, omnidirectional antenna used as a reference for antenna gain
C	A grounded antenna used to measure Earth conductivity
D	A spacecraft antenna used to direct signals toward Earth

44. - E9B05

What type of antenna pattern is shown in Figure E9-2?

Select	Answer
A	Radiation resistance
B	Elevation
C	Azimuth
D	Polarization

45. - E9C02

What is the radiation pattern of two 1/4-wavelength vertical antennas spaced 1/4 wavelength apart and fed 90 degrees out of phase?

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

46. - E9D07

What is an advantage of using top loading in a shortened HF vertical antenna?

Select	Answer
A	Greater structural strength
B	Lower Q
C	Higher losses
D	Improved radiation efficiency

47. - E9E07

What parameter describes the interactions at the load end of a mismatched transmission line?

Select	Answer
A	Reflection coefficient
B	Dielectric constant
C	Characteristic impedance
D	Velocity factor

48. - E9F08

Which of the following is a significant difference between foam dielectric coaxial cable and solid dielectric cable, assuming all other parameters are the same?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	Foam dielectric has lower loss per unit of length
C	Foam dielectric has lower safe operating voltage limits
D	Foam dielectric has higher velocity factor

49. - E9G10

What do the arcs on a Smith chart represent?

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

50. - E9H05

What is the main drawback of a small wire-loop antenna for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	It has no clearly defined null
B	All these choices are correct
C	It is practical for use only on VHF and higher bands
D	It has a bidirectional pattern

Figure E5-1

Figure E7-1

Figure E7-3

Figure E9-2