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

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1. - E0A03

Over what range of frequencies are the FCC human body RF exposure limits most restrictive?

Select	Answer
A	300 kHz to 3 MHz
B	30 to 300 MHz
C	3 to 30 MHz
D	300 to 3000 MHz

2. - E1A02

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

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

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

4. - E1C07

At what level below a signal's mean power level is its bandwidth determined according to FCC rules?

Select	Answer
A	26 dB
B	23 dB
C	3 dB
D	6 dB

5. - E1D07

Which HF amateur bands have frequencies authorized for space stations?

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

6. - E1E03

What is a Volunteer Examiner Coordinator?

Select	Answer
A	An organization that has entered into an agreement with the FCC to coordinate, prepare, and administer amateur operator license examinations
B	The person who has entered into an agreement with the FCC to be the VE session manager
C	A person who has volunteered to prepare amateur operator license examinations
D	A person who has volunteered to administer amateur operator license examinations

7. - E1F09

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

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

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	Digipeating
C	Store-and-forward
D	Multi-satellite relaying

9. - E2B07

What is the name of the signal component that carries color information in NTSC video?

Select	Answer
A	Hue
B	Chroma
C	Spectral intensity
D	Luminance

10. - E2C02

Which of the following best describes the term self-spotting? in connection with HF contest operating?

Select	Answer
A	The often-prohibited practice of posting one's own call sign and frequency on a spotting network
B	An automatic method for rapidly zero beating or tuning to a station's frequency before calling that station
C	A manual technique for rapidly zero beating or tuning to a station's frequency before calling that station
D	The acceptable practice of manually posting the call signs of stations on a spotting network

11. - E2D01

Which of the following digital modes is designed for meteor scatter communications?

Select	Answer
A	APRS
B	WSPR
C	Hellschreiber
D	MSK144

12. - E2E08

Which of the following HF digital modes can be used to transfer binary files?

Select	Answer
A	Hellschreiber
B	RTTY
C	PACTOR
D	AMTOR

13. - E3A05

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

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

14. - E3B01

What is transequatorial propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Propagation between points at the same latitude
B	Propagation between a point on the equator and its antipodal point
C	Propagation between points located on the magnetic equator
D	Propagation between two mid-latitude points at approximately the same distance north and south of the magnetic equator

15. - E3C08

What does the space weather term G5 mean?

Select	Answer
A	An extreme geomagnetic storm
B	Very low solar activity
C	Moderate solar wind
D	Waning sunspot numbers

16. - E4A11

How should an antenna analyzer be connected when measuring antenna resonance and feed point impedance?

Select	Answer
A	Loosely couple the analyzer near the antenna base
B	Connect the antenna feed line directly to the analyzer's connector
C	Connect the analyzer via a high-impedance transformer to the antenna
D	Loosely couple the antenna and a dummy load to the analyzer

17. - E4B04

Which S parameter represents input port return loss or reflection coefficient (equivalent to VSWR)?

Select	Answer
A	S22
B	S12
C	S11
D	S21

18. - E4C12

Which of the following has the largest effect on an SDR receiver's dynamic range?

Select	Answer
A	CPU register width in bits
B	RAM speed used for data storage
C	Anti-aliasing input filter bandwidth
D	Analog-to-digital converter sample width in bits

19. - E4D05

What transmitter frequencies would cause an intermodulation-product signal in a receiver tuned to 146.70 MHz when a nearby station transmits on 146.52 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	173.35 MHz and 139.40 MHz
B	146.34 MHz and 146.61 MHz
C	146.10 MHz and 147.30 MHz
D	146.88 MHz and 146.34 MHz

20. - E4E07

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

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

21. - E5A09

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

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

22. - E5B11

What is the phase angle between the voltage across and the current through a series RLC circuit if XC is 25 ohms, R is 100 ohms, and XL is 50 ohms?

Select	Answer
A	76 degrees with the voltage lagging the current
B	14 degrees with the voltage lagging the current
C	76 degrees with the voltage leading the current
D	14 degrees with the voltage leading the current

23. - E5C10

Which point on Figure E5-1 best represents the impedance of a series circuit consisting of a 400-ohm resistor and a 38-picofarad capacitor at 14 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	Point 4
B	Point 6
C	Point 2
D	Point 5

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	To avoid unwanted inductive reactance
C	All these choices are correct
D	To increase the thermal time constant

25. - E6A10

In Figure E6-1, what is the schematic symbol for an N-channel dual-gate MOSFET?

Select	Answer
A	5
B	6
C	2
D	4

26. - E6B03

What type of bias is required for an LED to emit light?

Select	Answer
A	Zero bias
B	Forward bias
C	Inductive bias
D	Reverse bias

27. - E6C07

What best describes a pull-up or pull-down resistor?

Select	Answer
A	A resistor that ensures that an oscillator frequency does not drift
B	A resistor in a keying circuit used to reduce key clicks
C	A resistor connected to the positive or negative supply line used to establish a voltage when an input or output is an open circuit
D	A resistor connected to an op-amp output that prevents signals from exceeding the power supply voltage

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

29. - E6E06

What characteristics of the MMIC make it a popular choice for VHF through microwave circuits?

Select	Answer
A	The ability to retrieve information from a single signal even in the presence of other strong signals
B	Controlled gain, low noise figure, and constant input and output impedance over the specified frequency range
C	Nearly infinite gain, very high input impedance, and very low output impedance
D	Plate current that is controlled by a control grid

30. - E6F01

What absorbs the energy from light falling on a photovoltaic cell?

Select	Answer
A	Holes
B	Electrons
C	Photons
D	Protons

31. - E7A11

What type of logic defines "1" as a high voltage?

Select	Answer
A	Reverse Logic
B	Positive Logic
C	Negative logic
D	Assertive Logic

32. - E7B13

Which of the following describes an emitter follower (or common collector) amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	A two-transistor amplifier with the emitters sharing a common bias resistor
B	A differential amplifier with both inputs fed to the emitter of the input transistor
C	An OR circuit with only one emitter used for output
D	An amplifier with a low impedance output that follows the base input voltage

33. - E7C03

What advantage does a series-L Pi-L-network have over a series-L Pi-network for impedance matching between the final amplifier of a vacuum-tube transmitter and an antenna?

Select	Answer
A	Does not require a capacitor
B	Greater transformation range
C	Greater harmonic suppression
D	Higher efficiency

34. - E7D06

What is the purpose of Q1 in the circuit shown in Figure E7-2?

Select	Answer
A	It provides a constant load for the voltage source
B	It controls the current supplied to the load
C	It provides negative feedback to improve regulation
D	It provides D1 with current

35. - E7E11

Which type of detector circuit is used for demodulating SSB signals?

Select	Answer
A	Discriminator
B	Phase detector
C	Product detector
D	Phase comparator

36. - E7F04

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

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

37. - E7G10

What absolute voltage gain can be expected from the circuit in Figure E7-3 when R1 is 1800 ohms and RF is 68 kilohms?

Select	Answer
A	1
B	0.03
C	76
D	38

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

39. - E8A05

What of the following instruments would be the most accurate for measuring the RMS voltage of a complex waveform?

Select	Answer
A	A grid dip meter
B	A D'Arsonval meter
C	An absorption wave meter
D	A true-RMS calculating meter

40. - E8B04

What is the modulation index of an FM-phone signal having a maximum carrier deviation of plus or minus 6 kHz when modulated with a 2 kHz modulating frequency?

Select	Answer
A	2000
B	1/3
C	6000
D	3

41. - E8C06

What is the 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

42. - E8D11

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

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

43. - E9A09

What is antenna efficiency?

Select	Answer
A	Radiation resistance divided by transmission resistance
B	Effective radiated power divided by transmitter output
C	Radiation resistance divided by total resistance
D	Total resistance divided by radiation resistance

44. - E9B07

How does the total amount of radiation emitted by a directional gain antenna compare with the total amount of radiation emitted from a theoretical isotropic antenna, assuming each is driven by the same amount of power?

Select	Answer
A	They are the same
B	The total amount of radiation from the directional antenna is increased by the gain of the antenna
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

45. - E9C10

Which of the following describes a Zepp antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A vertical array capable of quickly changing the direction of maximum radiation by changing phasing lines
B	An omni-directional antenna commonly used for satellite communications
C	A dipole constructed from zip cord
D	An end-fed dipole antenna

46. - E9D07

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

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

47. - E9E02

What is the name of an antenna matching system that matches an unbalanced feed line to an antenna by feeding the driven element both at the center of the element and at a fraction of a wavelength to one side of center?

Select	Answer
A	The delta match
B	The stub match
C	The epsilon match
D	The gamma match

48. - E9F09

What is the approximate physical length of a foam polyethylene dielectric coaxial transmission line that is electrically 1/4 wavelength long at 7.2 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	10.4 meters
B	5.2 meters
C	6.9 meters
D	8.3 meters

49. - E9G06

On the Smith chart shown in Figure E9-3, what is the name for the large outer circle on which the reactance arcs terminate?

Select	Answer
A	Prime axis
B	Polar axis
C	Impedance axis
D	Reactance axis

50. - E9H07

Why is RF attenuation used when direction-finding?

Select	Answer
A	To compensate for isotropic directivity and the antenna effect of feed lines
B	To increase receiver sensitivity
C	To prevent receiver overload which reduces pattern nulls
D	To narrow the receiver bandwidth

Figure E5-1

Figure E6-1

Figure E7-2

Figure E7-3

Figure E9-3