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

Logging in (or registering) will help the system to select questions that you need to focus on.

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	Mica
B	Uranium Hexafluoride
C	Zinc oxide
D	Beryllium Oxide

2. - E1A09

What action or actions should you take if your digital message forwarding station inadvertently forwards a communication that violates FCC rules?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	Notify the nearest FCC Field Engineers office
C	Discontinue forwarding the communication as soon as you become aware of it
D	Notify the originating station that the communication does not comply with FCC rules

3. - E1B10

What frequencies are authorized to an amateur station operating under RACES rules?

Select	Answer
A	All amateur service frequencies authorized to the control operator
B	Specific local government channels
C	Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS) channels
D	Specific segments in the amateur service MF, HF, VHF and UHF bands

4. - E1C01

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

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

5. - E1D03

What is a space telecommand station?

Select	Answer
A	An amateur station that transmits communications to initiate, modify or terminate functions of a space station
B	An amateur station that receives telemetry from a satellite or balloon more than 50 kilometers above the surface of the Earth
C	An amateur station located in a satellite or a balloon more than 50 kilometers above the surface of the Earth
D	An amateur station located on the surface of the Earth for communication with other Earth stations by means of Earth satellites

6. - E1E12

What must the VE team do with the application form if the examinee does not pass the exam?

Select	Answer
A	Return the application document to the examinee
B	Maintain the application form with the VEC's records
C	Send the application form to the FCC and inform the FCC of the grade
D	Destroy the application form

7. - E1F04

Which of the following geographic descriptions approximately describes "Line A"?

Select	Answer
A	A line roughly parallel to and north of the border between the U.S. and Mexico
B	A line roughly parallel to and east of the U.S. Pacific coastline
C	A line roughly parallel to and west of the U.S. Atlantic coastline
D	A line roughly parallel to and south of the border between the U.S. and Canada

8. - E2A08

Why should effective radiated power to a satellite that uses a linear transponder be limited?

Select	Answer
A	To avoid interfering with terrestrial QSOs
B	To avoid reducing the downlink power to all other users
C	To prevent creating errors in the satellite telemetry
D	To prevent the satellite from emitting out-of-band signals

9. - E2B10

What aspect of an analog slow-scan television signal encodes the brightness of the picture?

Select	Answer
A	Tone frequency
B	Sync amplitude
C	Tone amplitude
D	Sync frequency

10. - E2C04

Which of the following frequencies are sometimes used for amateur radio mesh networks?

Select	Answer
A	The 60 meter band channel centered on 5373 kHz
B	Cable TV channels 41 through 43
C	HF frequencies where digital communications are permitted
D	Frequencies shared with various unlicensed wireless data services

11. - E2D09

What type of modulation is used for JT65 contacts?

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

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	Selective fading has occurred
C	One of the signal filters is saturated
D	The mark and space signal have been inverted

13. - E3A06

What might help to restore contact when DX signals become too weak to copy across an entire HF band a few hours after sunset?

Select	Answer
A	Switch to a lower frequency HF band
B	Wait 90 minutes or so for the signal degradation to pass
C	Wait 24 hours before attempting another communication on the band
D	Switch to a higher frequency HF band

14. - E3B06

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

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

15. - E3C13

What type of polarization is best for ground-wave propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Vertical
B	Elliptical
C	Horizontal
D	Circular

16. - E4A08

Which of the following measures SWR?

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

17. - E4B10

Which of the following methods measures intermodulation distortion in an SSB transmitter?

Select	Answer
A	Modulate the transmitter using two AF signals having harmonically related frequencies and observe the RF output with a peak reading wattmeter
B	Modulate the transmitter using two RF signals having non-harmonically related frequencies and observe the RF output with a spectrum analyzer
C	Modulate the transmitter using two RF signals having harmonically related frequencies and observe the RF output with a logic analyzer
D	Modulate the transmitter using two AF signals having non-harmonically related frequencies and observe the RF output with a spectrum analyzer

18. - E4C06

A CW receiver with the AGC off has an equivalent input noise power density of -174 dBm/Hz. What would be the level of an unmodulated carrier input to this receiver that would yield an audio output SNR of 0 dB in a 400 Hz noise bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	-164 dBm
B	-155 dBm
C	-174 dBm
D	-148 dBm

19. - E4D08

What causes intermodulation in an electronic circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Lack of neutralization
B	Too little gain
C	Positive feedback
D	Nonlinear circuits or devices

20. - E4E05

How can radio frequency interference from an AC motor be suppressed?

Select	Answer
A	By installing a brute-force AC-line filter in series with the motor leads
B	By installing a high-pass filter in series with the motor's power leads
C	By using a ground-fault current interrupter in the circuit used to power the motor
D	By installing a bypass capacitor in series with the motor leads

21. - E5A16

What is the resonant frequency of an RLC circuit if R is 33 ohms, L is 50 microhenries and C is 10 picofarads?

Select	Answer
A	7.12 kHz
B	7.12 MHz
C	23.5 MHz
D	23.5 kHz

22. - E5B06

What is susceptance?

Select	Answer
A	A measure of the efficiency of a transformer
B	The magnetic impedance of a circuit
C	The imaginary part of admittance
D	The ratio of magnetic field to electric field

23. - E5C01

Which of the following represents capacitive reactance in rectangular notation?

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

24. - E5D10

How can the true power be determined in an AC circuit where the voltage and current are out of phase?

Select	Answer
A	By multiplying the reactive power by the power factor
B	By dividing the reactive power by the power factor
C	By multiplying the apparent power by the power factor
D	By dividing the apparent power by the power factor

25. - E6A11

In Figure E6-1, what is the schematic symbol for a P-channel junction FET?

Select	Answer
A	3
B	6
C	2
D	1

26. - E6B11

What is used to control the attenuation of RF signals by a PIN diode?

Select	Answer
A	Capacitance of an RF coupling capacitor
B	Reverse voltage larger than the RF signal
C	Forward DC bias current
D	A sub-harmonic pump signal

27. - E6C02

What happens when the level of a comparator's input signal crosses the threshold?

Select	Answer
A	The IC input can be damaged
B	The feedback loop becomes unstable
C	The comparator changes its output state
D	The comparator enters latch-up

28. - E6D07

What is current in the primary winding of a transformer called if no load is attached to the secondary?

Select	Answer
A	Direct current
B	Excitation current
C	Magnetizing current
D	Stabilizing current

29. - E6E10

What advantage does surface-mount technology offer at RF compared to using through-hole components?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	Components have less parasitic inductance and capacitance
C	Shorter circuit-board traces
D	Smaller circuit area

30. - E6F07

What is a solid-state relay?

Select	Answer
A	A device that uses semiconductors to implement the functions of an electromechanical relay
B	A semiconductor passive delay line
C	A relay using transistors to drive the relay coil
D	A mechanical relay that latches in the on or off state each time it is pulsed

31. - E7A03

Which of the following can divide the frequency of a pulse train by 2?

Select	Answer
A	A multiplexer
B	A flip-flop
C	An OR gate
D	An XOR gate

32. - E7B02

What is a Class D amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	An amplifier that uses drift-mode FETs for high efficiency
B	A type of amplifier that uses switching technology to achieve high efficiency
C	A low power amplifier that uses a differential amplifier for improved linearity
D	A frequency doubling amplifier

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	Higher efficiency
D	Greater harmonic suppression

34. - E7D13

What is the equation for calculating power dissipated by a series linear voltage regulator?

Select	Answer
A	Voltage difference from input to output multiplied by output current
B	Input voltage multiplied by input current
C	Input voltage divided by output current
D	Output voltage multiplied by output current

35. - E7E05

What circuit is added to an FM transmitter to boost the higher audio frequencies?

Select	Answer
A	A de-emphasis network
B	A heterodyne enhancer
C	A heterodyne suppressor
D	A pre-emphasis network

36. - E7F06

What is the minimum number of bits required for an analog-to-digital converter to sample a signal with a range of 1 volt at a resolution of 1 millivolt?

Select	Answer
A	8 bits
B	10 bits
C	4 bits
D	6 bits

37. - E7G02

What is ringing in a filter?

Select	Answer
A	An echo caused by a long time delay
B	A reduction in high frequency response
C	Partial cancellation of the signal over a range of frequencies
D	Undesired oscillations added to the desired signal

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

39. - E8A07

What determines the PEP-to-average power ratio of a single-sideband phone signal?

Select	Answer
A	The degree of carrier suppression
B	The frequency of the modulating signal
C	Speech characteristics
D	Amplifier gain

40. - E8B11

What is digital time division multiplexing?

Select	Answer
A	Two or more data streams share the same channel by transmitting time of transmission as the sub-carrier
B	Two or more data streams are assigned to discrete sub-carriers on an FM transmitter
C	Two or more signals are arranged to share discrete time slots of a data transmission
D	Two or more signals are quadrature modulated to increase bandwidth efficiency

41. - E8C04

What technique minimizes the bandwidth of a PSK31 signal?

Select	Answer
A	Use of trapezoidal data pulses
B	Use of sinusoidal data pulses
C	Reed-Solomon character encoding
D	Zero-sum character encoding

42. - E8D05

What is the most common method of reducing key clicks?

Select	Answer
A	Reduce keying waveform rise and fall times
B	High-pass filters at the transmitter output
C	Increase keying waveform rise and fall times
D	Low-pass filters at the transmitter output

43. - E9A08

What is antenna bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	Antenna length divided by the number of elements
B	The angle between the half-power radiation points
C	The angle formed between two imaginary lines drawn through the element ends
D	The frequency range over which an antenna satisfies a performance requirement

44. - E9B08

What is the far field of an antenna?

Select	Answer
A	The region where the shape of the antenna pattern is independent of distance
B	The region where radiated power dissipates over a specified time period
C	The region where radiated field strengths are constant
D	The region of the ionosphere where radiated power is not refracted

45. - E9C13

How does the radiation pattern of a horizontally polarized 3-element beam antenna vary with increasing height above ground?

Select	Answer
A	The takeoff angle of the lowest elevation lobe decreases
B	The takeoff angle of the lowest elevation lobe increases
C	The horizontal beamwidth increases
D	The horizontal beamwidth decreases

46. - E9D08

What happens as the Q of an antenna increases?

Select	Answer
A	Gain is reduced
B	More common-mode current is present on the feed line
C	SWR bandwidth increases
D	SWR bandwidth decreases

47. - E9E03

What is the name of the matching system that uses a section of transmission line connected in parallel with the feed line at or near the feed point?

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

48. - E9F04

What impedance does a 1/2-wavelength transmission line present to a generator when the line is shorted at the far end?

Select	Answer
A	Very low impedance
B	The same as the characteristic impedance of the line
C	The same as the output impedance of the generator
D	Very high impedance

49. - E9G09

What third family of circles is often added to a Smith chart during the process of solving problems?

Select	Answer
A	Standing wave ratio circles
B	Antenna-length circles
C	Coaxial-length circles
D	Radiation-pattern circles

50. - E9H08

What is the function of a sense antenna?

Select	Answer
A	It increases the sensitivity of a DF antenna array
B	It allows DF antennas to receive signals at different vertical angles
C	It provides diversity reception that cancels multipath signals
D	It modifies the pattern of a DF antenna array to provide a null in one direction

Figure E6-1