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

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1. - E0A02

When evaluating RF exposure levels from your station at a neighbor's home, what must you do?

Select	Answer
A	Ensure signals from your station are less than the uncontrolled Maximum Permitted Exposure (MPE) limits
B	Ensure signals from your station are less than the controlled Maximum Permitted Exposure (MPE) limits
C	Ensure signals from your station are less than the uncontrolled Maximum Permitted Emission (MPE) limits
D	Ensure signals from your station are less than the controlled Maximum Permitted Emission (MPE) limits

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	14.070 MHz
C	14.100 MHz
D	14.149 MHz

3. - E1B04

What must be done before placing an amateur station within an officially designated wilderness area or wildlife preserve, or an area listed in the National Register of Historic Places?

Select	Answer
A	A letter of intent must be filed with the Environmental Protection Agency
B	A form FSD-15 must be submitted to the Department of the Interior
C	A proposal must be submitted to the National Park Service
D	An Environmental Assessment must be submitted to the FCC

4. - E1C13

What notifications must be given before transmitting on the 630 meter or 2200 meter bands?

Select	Answer
A	Operators must inform the FAA of their intent to operate, giving their call sign and distance to the nearest runway
B	Operators must inform the Utilities Technology Council (UTC) of their call sign and coordinates of the station
C	An environmental impact statement must be filed with the Department of the Interior
D	A special endorsement must be requested from the FCC

5. - E1D01

What is the definition of telemetry?

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

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

7. - E1F10

Who may be the control operator of an auxiliary station?

Select	Answer
A	Any licensed amateur operator
B	Only General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators
C	Only Technician, General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators
D	Only Amateur Extra Class operators

8. - E2A03

How is the signal inverted by an inverting linear transponder?

Select	Answer
A	The signal is passed through a non-linear filter
B	The signal is passed through a mixer and the difference rather than the sum is transmitted
C	The signal is reduced to I and Q components and the Q component is filtered out
D	The signal is detected and remodulated on the reverse sideband

9. - E2B02

How many horizontal lines make up a fast-scan (NTSC) television frame?

Select	Answer
A	1080
B	60
C	525
D	30

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	Repeater contacts between U.S. club members
C	Special event contacts between stations in the U.S.
D	Contacts between a U.S. station and a non-U.S. station

11. - E2D01

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

Select	Answer
A	MSK144
B	WSPR
C	APRS
D	Hellschreiber

12. - E2E13

Which of these digital modes has the fastest data throughput under clear communication conditions?

Select	Answer
A	300 baud packet
B	PSK31
C	170 Hz shift, 45 baud RTTY
D	AMTOR

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

14. - E3B10

Why is chordal hop propagation desirable?

Select	Answer
A	The signal experiences less loss compared to multi-hop using Earth as a reflector
B	Signals travel faster along ionospheric chords
C	Atmospheric noise is lower in the direction of chordal hop propagation
D	The MUF for chordal hop propagation is much lower than for normal skip propagation

15. - E3C05

What orientation of Bz (B sub z) increases the likelihood that incoming particles from the sun will cause disturbed conditions?

Select	Answer
A	Southward
B	Westward
C	Eastward
D	Northward

16. - E4A01

Which of the following limits the highest frequency signal that can be accurately displayed on a digital oscilloscope?

Select	Answer
A	Sampling rate of the analog-to-digital converter
B	Amount of memory
C	Q of the circuit
D	All these choices are correct

17. - E4B07

What do the subscripts of S parameters represent?

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

18. - E4C13

How does a narrow-band roofing filter affect receiver performance?

Select	Answer
A	It improves dynamic range by attenuating strong signals near the receive frequency
B	All these choices are correct
C	It improves intelligibility by using low Q circuitry to reduce ringing
D	It improves sensitivity by reducing front end noise

19. - E4D02

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

Select	Answer
A	Cross-modulation of the desired signal and insufficient audio power to operate the speaker
B	Spurious signals caused by cross-modulation and desensitization from strong adjacent signals
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. - E4E10

What might be the cause of a loud roaring or buzzing AC line interference that comes and goes at intervals?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	A malfunctioning illuminated advertising display
C	A defective doorbell or doorbell transformer inside a nearby residence
D	Arcing contacts in a thermostatically controlled device

21. - E5A07

What is the magnitude of the current at the input of a parallel RLC circuit at resonance?

Select	Answer
A	L/R
B	Maximum
C	Minimum
D	R/L

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. - E5C11

Which point in Figure E5-1 best represents the impedance of a series circuit consisting of a 300-ohm resistor and an 18-microhenry inductor at 3.505 MHz?

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

24. - E5D14

What is reactive power?

Select	Answer
A	Power lost because of capacitor leakage
B	Wattless, nonproductive power
C	Power consumed in circuit Q
D	Power consumed in wire resistance in an inductor

25. - E6A10

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

Select	Answer
A	2
B	4
C	5
D	6

26. - E6B05

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

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

27. - E6C01

What is the function of hysteresis in a comparator?

Select	Answer
A	To prevent input noise from causing unstable output signals
B	To allow the comparator to be used with AC input signals
C	To cause the output to change states continually
D	To increase the sensitivity

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

29. - E6E05

Which of the following noise figure values is typical of a low-noise UHF preamplifier?

Select	Answer
A	44 dBm
B	-20 dBm
C	-10 dB
D	2 dB

30. - E6F06

Which of these materials is most commonly used to create photoconductive devices?

Select	Answer
A	A crystalline semiconductor
B	A liquid semiconductor
C	A heavy metal
D	An ordinary metal

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 XOR gate
D	An OR gate

32. - E7B17

Why are odd-order rather than even-order intermodulation distortion products of concern in linear power amplifiers?

Select	Answer
A	Because they maintain the sidebands, thus causing multiple duplicate signals
B	Because they are relatively close in frequency to the desired signal
C	Because they are relatively far in frequency from the desired signal
D	Because they invert the sidebands causing distortion

33. - E7C04

How does an impedance-matching circuit transform a complex impedance to a resistive impedance?

Select	Answer
A	Reactive currents are dissipated in matched resistances
B	It introduces negative resistance to cancel the resistive part of impedance
C	It cancels the reactive part of the impedance and changes the resistive part to a desired value
D	It introduces transconductance to cancel the reactive part of impedance

34. - E7D13

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

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

35. - E7E08

What are the principal frequencies that appear at the output of a mixer circuit?

Select	Answer
A	The two input frequencies along with their sum and difference frequencies
B	The square root of the product of input frequencies
C	Two and four times the original frequency
D	1.414 and 0.707 times the input frequency

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 four times the rate of the highest frequency component of the signal
B	At least twice the rate of the highest frequency component of the signal
C	At the same rate as the highest frequency component of the signal
D	At least half the rate of the highest frequency component of the signal

37. - E7G04

What is meant by the "op-amp input offset voltage"?

Select	Answer
A	The potential between the amplifier input terminals of the op-amp in an open loop condition
B	The difference between the output voltage of the op-amp and the input voltage required in the immediately following stage
C	The output voltage of the op-amp minus its input voltage
D	The differential input voltage needed to bring the open loop output voltage to zero

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

39. - E8A06

What is the approximate ratio of PEP-to-average power in a typical single-sideband phone signal?

Select	Answer
A	2.5 to 1
B	100 to 1
C	1 to 1
D	25 to 1

40. - E8B01

What is the modulation index of an FM signal?

Select	Answer
A	The type of modulation used by the transmitter
B	The bandwidth of the transmitted signal divided by the modulating signal frequency
C	The ratio of modulating signal amplitude to frequency deviation
D	The ratio of frequency deviation to modulating signal frequency

41. - E8C05

What is the approximate bandwidth of a 13-WPM International Morse Code transmission?

Select	Answer
A	52 Hz
B	13 Hz
C	104 Hz
D	26 Hz

42. - E8D10

What are some of the differences between the Baudot digital code and ASCII?

Select	Answer
A	Baudot uses 4 data bits per character, ASCII uses 7 or 8; Baudot uses 1 character as a letters/figures shift code, ASCII has no letters/figures code
B	Baudot uses 7 data bits per character, ASCII uses 8; Baudot has no letters/figures shift code, ASCII uses 2 letters/figures shift codes
C	Baudot uses 5 data bits per character, ASCII uses 7 or 8; Baudot uses 2 characters as letters/figures shift codes, ASCII has no letters/figures shift code
D	Baudot uses 6 data bits per character, ASCII uses 7 or 8; Baudot has no letters/figures shift code, ASCII uses 2 letters/figures shift codes

43. - E9A01

What is an isotropic antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A theoretical, omnidirectional antenna used as a reference for antenna gain
B	A grounded antenna used to measure Earth conductivity
C	A horizontally polarized antenna used to compare Yagi antennas
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	Azimuth
B	Elevation
C	Radiation resistance
D	Polarization

45. - E9C04

What happens to the radiation pattern of an unterminated long wire antenna as the wire length is increased?

Select	Answer
A	The lobes become more perpendicular to the wire
B	The vertical angle increases
C	The front-to-back ratio decreases
D	The lobes align more in the direction of the wire

46. - E9D12

Which of the following would provide the best RF ground for your station?

Select	Answer
A	An electrically short connection to 3 or 4 interconnected ground rods driven into the Earth
B	An electrically short connection to 3 or 4 interconnected ground rods via a series RF choke
C	An electrically short connection to a metal water pipe
D	A 50-ohm resistor connected to ground

47. - E9E07

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

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

48. - E9F13

What impedance does a 1/4-wavelength transmission line present to a generator when the line is shorted at the far end?

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

49. - E9G03

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

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

50. - E9H08

What is the function of a sense antenna?

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

Figure E5-1

Figure E6-1

Figure E9-2