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

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1. - E0A04

When evaluating a site with multiple transmitters operating at the same time, the operators and licensees of which transmitters are responsible for mitigating over-exposure situations?

Select	Answer
A	Only the most powerful transmitter
B	Only commercial transmitters
C	Each transmitter operating with a duty cycle greater than 50 percent
D	Each transmitter that produces 5 percent or more of its MPE limit in areas where the total MPE limit is exceeded.

2. - E1A11

Which of the following describes authorization or licensing required when operating an amateur station aboard a U.S.-registered vessel in international waters?

Select	Answer
A	Any FCC-issued amateur license
B	Only General Class or higher amateur licenses
C	An unrestricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit
D	Any amateur license with an FCC Marine or Aircraft endorsement

3. - E1B02

Which of the following is an acceptable bandwidth for Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) based voice or SSTV digital transmissions made on the HF amateur bands?

Select	Answer
A	15 kHz
B	3 kHz
C	20 kHz
D	10 kHz

4. - E1C04

What is meant by IARP?

Select	Answer
A	An international amateur radio permit that allows U.S. amateurs to operate in certain countries of the Americas
B	A forecast of intermittent aurora radio propagation
C	The internal amateur radio practices policy of the FCC
D	An indication of increased antenna reflected power

5. - E1D06

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

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

6. - E1E07

What should a VE do if a candidate fails to comply with the examiner's instructions during an amateur operator license examination?

Select	Answer
A	Immediately terminate everyone's examination and close the session
B	Allow the candidate to complete the examination, but invalidate the results
C	Warn the candidate that continued failure to comply will result in termination of the examination
D	Immediately terminate the candidate's examination

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 provide additional spectrum for personal use
C	To allow regular operation on Land Mobile channels
D	To provide temporary operation while awaiting normal licensing

8. - E2A11

What type of antenna can be used to minimize the effects of spin modulation and Faraday rotation?

Select	Answer
A	An isotropic antenna
B	A circularly polarized antenna
C	A log-periodic dipole array
D	A linearly polarized antenna

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. - E2C02

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

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

11. - E2D06

Which of the following describes a method of establishing EME contacts?

Select	Answer
A	High-speed CW identification to avoid fading
B	Time synchronous transmissions alternately from each station
C	Storing and forwarding digital messages
D	Judging optimum transmission times by monitoring beacons reflected from the moon

12. - E2E12

How do ALE stations establish contact?

Select	Answer
A	ALE radios monitor an internet site for the frequency they are being paged on
B	ALE radios activate when they hear their signal echoed by back scatter
C	ALE radios send a constant tone code to establish a frequency for future use
D	ALE constantly scans a list of frequencies, activating the radio when the designated call sign is received

13. - E3A09

Which of the following frequency ranges is most suited for meteor scatter communications?

Select	Answer
A	1.8 MHz - 1.9 MHz
B	220 MHz - 450 MHz
C	28 MHz - 148 MHz
D	10 MHz - 14 MHz

14. - E3B11

At what time of day can sporadic E propagation occur?

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

15. - E3C10

What does the 304A solar parameter measure?

Select	Answer
A	UV emissions at 304 angstroms, correlated to the solar flux index
B	The solar wind velocity at 304 degrees from the solar equator, correlated to solar activity
C	The ratio of x-ray flux to radio flux, correlated to sunspot number
D	The solar emission at 304 GHz, correlated to x-ray flare levels

16. - E4A06

What is the effect of aliasing on a digital oscilloscope caused by setting the time base too slow?

Select	Answer
A	A false, jittery low-frequency version of the signal is displayed
B	All signals will have a DC offset
C	Excessive blanking occurs, which prevents display of the signal
D	Calibration of the vertical scale is no longer valid

17. - E4B11

Which of the following can be measured with a vector network analyzer?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	Input impedance
C	Reflection coefficient
D	Output impedance

18. - E4C05

What does a receiver noise floor of -174 dBm represent?

Select	Answer
A	The galactic noise contribution to minimum detectable signal
B	The theoretical noise in a 1 Hz bandwidth at the input of a perfect receiver at room temperature
C	The noise figure of a 1 Hz bandwidth receiver
D	The minimum detectable signal as a function of receive frequency

19. - E4D10

What does a third-order intercept level of 40 dBm mean with respect to receiver performance?

Select	Answer
A	The receiver can tolerate signals up to 40 dB above the noise floor without producing third-order intermodulation products
B	Signals less than 40 dBm will not generate audible third-order intermodulation products
C	A pair of 1 mW input signals will produce a third-order intermodulation product that is 40 dB stronger than the input signal
D	A pair of 40 dBm input signals will theoretically generate a third-order intermodulation product that has the same output amplitude as either of the input 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	You are receiving skywave signals from a distant station
B	Your station receiver IF amplifier stage is defective
C	One or more of the broadcast stations is transmitting an over-modulated signal
D	Nearby corroded metal joints are mixing and re-radiating the broadcast signals

21. - E5A14

What is the resonant frequency of an RLC circuit if R is 22 ohms, L is 50 microhenries and C is 40 picofarads?

Select	Answer
A	44.72 MHz
B	22.36 MHz
C	1.78 MHz
D	3.56 MHz

22. - E5B03

How is impedance in polar form converted to an equivalent admittance?

Select	Answer
A	Take the reciprocal of the magnitude and change the sign of the angle
B	Take the square root of the magnitude and add 180 degrees to the angle
C	Take the reciprocal of the angle and change the sign of the magnitude
D	Square the magnitude and subtract 90 degrees from the angle

23. - E5C02

How are impedances described in polar coordinates?

Select	Answer
A	By Y and G values
B	By phase angle and magnitude
C	By real and imaginary parts
D	By X and R values

24. - E5D04

Why are short connections used at microwave frequencies?

Select	Answer
A	To increase neutralizing resistance
B	To reduce noise figure
C	To increase compensating capacitance
D	To reduce phase shift along the connection

25. - E6A11

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

Select	Answer
A	1
B	2
C	3
D	6

26. - E6B07

What is the failure mechanism when a junction diode fails due to excessive current?

Select	Answer
A	Excessive junction temperature
B	Charge carrier depletion
C	Excessive inverse voltage
D	Insufficient forward voltage

27. - E6C05

What is an advantage of CMOS logic devices over TTL devices?

Select	Answer
A	Differential output capability
B	Lower power consumption
C	Lower distortion
D	Immune to damage from static discharge

28. - E6D13

What is the primary cause of inductor self-resonance?

Select	Answer
A	The skin effect
B	Non-linear core hysteresis
C	Inter-turn capacitance
D	Inductive kickback

29. - E6E10

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

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

30. - E6F08

Why are optoisolators often used in conjunction with solid-state circuits when switching 120 VAC?

Select	Answer
A	Optoisolators eliminate the effects of reflected light in the control circuit
B	Optoisolators provide a low impedance link between a control circuit and a power circuit
C	Optoisolators provide impedance matching between the control circuit and power circuit
D	Optoisolators provide a very high degree of electrical isolation between a control circuit and the circuit being switched

31. - E7A06

What is a characteristic of a monostable multivibrator?

Select	Answer
A	It switches momentarily to the opposite binary state and then returns to its original state after a set time
B	It maintains a constant output voltage, regardless of variations in the input voltage
C	It stores one bit of data in either a 0 or 1 state
D	It produces a continuous square wave oscillating between 1 and 0

32. - E7B14

Why are switching amplifiers more efficient than linear amplifiers?

Select	Answer
A	Linear amplifiers have high gain resulting in higher harmonic content
B	Switching amplifiers use push-pull circuits
C	The power transistor is at saturation or cutoff most of the time
D	Switching amplifiers operate at higher voltages

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	A cavity filter
C	An L-C filter
D	A crystal filter

34. - E7D02

What is a characteristic of a switching electronic voltage regulator?

Select	Answer
A	It is generally less efficient than a linear regulator
B	The controlled device's duty cycle is changed to produce a constant average output voltage
C	It gives a ramp voltage at its output
D	The resistance of a control element is varied in direct proportion to the line voltage or load current

35. - E7E01

Which of the following can be used to generate FM phone emissions?

Select	Answer
A	A reactance modulator on the oscillator
B	A balanced modulator on the oscillator
C	A balanced modulator on the audio amplifier
D	A reactance modulator on the final amplifier

36. - E7F01

What is meant by direct digital conversion as applied to software defined radios?

Select	Answer
A	Incoming RF is converted to a control voltage for a voltage controlled oscillator
B	A switching mixer is used to generate I and Q signals directly from the RF input
C	Software is converted from source code to object code during operation of the receiver
D	Incoming RF is digitized by an analog-to-digital converter without being mixed with a local oscillator signal

37. - E7G01

What is the typical output impedance of an op-amp?

Select	Answer
A	1000 ohms
B	Very high
C	100 ohms
D	Very low

38. - E7H15

Which of these functions can be performed by a phase-locked loop?

Select	Answer
A	Photovoltaic conversion, optical coupling
B	Wide-band AF and RF power amplification
C	Comparison of two digital input signals, digital pulse counter
D	Frequency synthesis, FM demodulation

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 cosine wave
D	A sine wave

40. - E8B08

What describes Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing?

Select	Answer
A	A digital modulation technique using subcarriers at frequencies chosen to avoid intersymbol interference
B	A bandwidth compression technique using Fourier transforms
C	A digital mode for narrow-band, slow-speed transmissions
D	A frequency modulation technique that uses non-harmonically related frequencies

41. - E8C11

What is the relationship between symbol rate and baud?

Select	Answer
A	Baud is twice the symbol rate
B	Baud is only used for RTTY
C	They are the same
D	Symbol rate is only used for packet-based modes

42. - E8D05

What is the most common method of reducing key clicks?

Select	Answer
A	Reduce keying waveform rise and fall times
B	Low-pass filters at the transmitter output
C	Increase keying waveform rise and fall times
D	High-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 frequency range over which an antenna satisfies a performance requirement
C	The angle formed between two imaginary lines drawn through the element ends
D	The angle between the half-power radiation points

44. - E9B01

In the antenna radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-1, what is the beamwidth?

Select	Answer
A	25 degrees
B	30 degrees
C	75 degrees
D	50 degrees

45. - E9C06

What is the effect of adding a terminating resistor to a rhombic antenna?

Select	Answer
A	It changes the radiation pattern from horizontal to vertical polarization
B	It changes the radiation pattern from bidirectional to unidirectional
C	It reflects the standing waves on the antenna elements back to the transmitter
D	It decreases the ground loss

46. - E9D03

Where should a high Q loading coil be placed to minimize losses in a shortened vertical antenna?

Select	Answer
A	At a voltage node
B	As low as possible on the vertical radiator
C	Near the center of the vertical radiator
D	As close to the transmitter as possible

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 delta match
B	The omega match
C	The gamma match
D	The stub match

48. - E9F11

What impedance does a 1/8-wavelength transmission line present to a generator when the line is open at the far end?

Select	Answer
A	An inductive reactance
B	A capacitive reactance
C	Infinite
D	The same as the characteristic impedance of the line

49. - E9G02

What type of coordinate system is used in a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Resistance circles and reactance arcs
B	Voltage circles and current arcs
C	Resistance lines and reactance chords
D	Voltage lines and current chords

50. - E9H11

What feature of a cardioid pattern antenna makes it useful for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	Broadband response
B	A very sharp peak
C	High radiation angle
D	A very sharp single null

Figure E6-1

Figure E9-1