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

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1. - E0A11

Which of the following injuries can result from using high-power UHF or microwave transmitters?

Select	Answer
A	Blood clotting from the intense magnetic field
B	Ingestion of ozone gas from the cooling system
C	Localized heating of the body from RF exposure in excess of the MPE limits
D	Hearing loss caused by high voltage corona discharge

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	14.100 MHz
C	14.070 MHz
D	14.149 MHz

3. - E1B07

To what type of regulations does PRB-1 apply?

Select	Answer
A	State and local zoning
B	Use of wireless devices in vehicles
C	FAA tower height limits
D	Homeowners associations

4. - E1C12

On what portion of the 630 meter band are phone emissions permitted?

Select	Answer
A	None
B	Only the bottom 3 kHz
C	The entire band
D	Only the top 3 kHz

5. - E1D07

Which HF amateur bands have frequencies authorized for space stations?

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

6. - E1E12

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

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

7. - E1F06

Under what circumstances might the FCC issue a Special Temporary Authority (STA) to an amateur station?

Select	Answer
A	To provide temporary operation while awaiting normal licensing
B	To provide for experimental amateur communications
C	To provide additional spectrum for personal use
D	To allow regular operation on Land Mobile channels

8. - E2A07

Which of the following types of signals can be relayed through a linear transponder?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	PSK and packet
C	FM and CW
D	SSB and SSTV

9. - E2B10

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

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

10. - E2C10

Why might a DX station state that they are listening on another frequency?

Select	Answer
A	To separate the calling stations from the DX station
B	All these choices are correct
C	To improve operating efficiency by reducing interference
D	Because the DX station may be transmitting on a frequency that is prohibited to some responding stations

11. - E2D06

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

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

12. - E2E10

Which of these digital modes has the narrowest bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	300-baud packet
B	PSK31
C	170 Hz shift, 45-baud RTTY
D	MFSK16

13. - E3A05

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

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

14. - E3B06

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

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

15. - E3C12

How does the maximum range of ground-wave propagation change when the signal frequency is increased?

Select	Answer
A	It stays the same
B	It peaks at roughly 14 MHz
C	It decreases
D	It increases

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 frequency standard is displayed and the probe is adjusted until the deflection time is accurate
C	A square wave is displayed and the probe is adjusted until the horizontal portions of the displayed wave are as nearly flat as possible
D	A DC voltage standard is displayed and the probe is adjusted until the displayed voltage is accurate

17. - E4B03

Which S parameter is equivalent to forward gain?

Select	Answer
A	S11
B	S12
C	S21
D	S22

18. - E4C01

What is an effect of excessive phase noise in a receiver's local oscillator?

Select	Answer
A	It can affect the receiver's frequency calibration
B	It limits the receiver's ability to receive strong signals
C	It decreases receiver third-order intercept point
D	It can combine with strong signals on nearby frequencies to generate interference

19. - E4D07

Which of the following reduces the likelihood of receiver desensitization?

Select	Answer
A	Increase the receiver front end gain
B	Switch from fast AGC to slow AGC
C	Raise the receiver IF frequency
D	Decrease the RF bandwidth of the receiver

20. - E4E07

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

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

21. - E5A06

What is the magnitude of the circulating current within the components of a parallel LC circuit at resonance?

Select	Answer
A	It is at a minimum
B	It equals 2 multiplied by pi, multiplied by frequency, multiplied by inductance
C	It equals 1 divided by the quantity 2 times pi, multiplied by the square root of inductance L multiplied by capacitance C
D	It is at a maximum

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	The sign is reversed
D	It becomes the reciprocal

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 3
B	Point 7
C	Point 8
D	Point 1

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

25. - E6A01

In what application is gallium arsenide used as a semiconductor material?

Select	Answer
A	In high-power audio circuits
B	In high-current rectifier circuits
C	In very low-frequency RF circuits
D	In microwave circuits

26. - E6B05

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

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

27. - E6C06

Why do CMOS digital integrated circuits have high immunity to noise on the input signal or power supply?

Select	Answer
A	Bandwidth is very limited
B	The input switching threshold is about one-half the power supply voltage
C	The input switching threshold is about two times the power supply voltage
D	Large bypass capacitance is inherent

28. - E6D09

What devices are commonly used as VHF and UHF parasitic suppressors at the input and output terminals of a transistor HF amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	Ferrite beads
B	Electrolytic capacitors
C	Steel-core toroids
D	Butterworth filters

29. - E6E09

Which of the following component package types would be most suitable for use at frequencies above the HF range?

Select	Answer
A	Axial lead
B	TO-220
C	Surface mount
D	Radial lead

30. - E6F08

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

Select	Answer
A	Optoisolators provide a very high degree of electrical isolation between a control circuit and the circuit being switched
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 eliminate the effects of reflected light in the control circuit

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. - E7B10

In Figure E7-1, what is the purpose of R1 and R2?

Select	Answer
A	Voltage divider bias
B	Self bias
C	Load resistors
D	Feedback

33. - E7C04

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

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

34. - E7D05

Which of the following types of linear voltage regulator places a constant load on the unregulated voltage source?

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

35. - E7E07

What is meant by the term "baseband" in radio communications?

Select	Answer
A	The frequency range occupied by a message signal prior to modulation
B	The unmodulated bandwidth of the transmitted signal
C	The basic oscillator frequency in an FM transmitter that is multiplied to increase the deviation and carrier frequency
D	The lowest frequency band that the transmitter or receiver covers

36. - E7F08

What is the function of decimation?

Select	Answer
A	Reducing the effective sample rate by removing samples
B	Removing unnecessary significant digits
C	Converting data to binary code decimal form
D	Attenuating the 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. - E7H09

What type of frequency synthesizer circuit uses a phase accumulator, lookup table, digital to analog converter, and a low-pass anti-alias filter?

Select	Answer
A	A phase-locked loop synthesizer
B	A direct digital synthesizer
C	A hybrid synthesizer
D	A diode-switching matrix synthesizer

39. - E8A08

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

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

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	3
B	0.3
C	1000
D	3000

41. - E8C03

Why should phase-shifting of a PSK signal be done at the zero crossing of the RF signal?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	To minimize bandwidth
C	To improve carrier suppression
D	To simplify modulation

42. - E8D05

What is the most common method of reducing key clicks?

Select	Answer
A	Reduce keying waveform rise and fall times
B	Increase keying waveform rise and fall times
C	Low-pass filters at the transmitter output
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 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. - E9B11

What is a disadvantage of decreasing the number of wire segments in an antenna model below 10 segments per half-wavelength?

Select	Answer
A	The computed feed point impedance may be incorrect
B	Ground conductivity will not be accurately modeled
C	The resulting design will favor radiation of harmonic energy
D	The antenna will become mechanically unstable

45. - E9C06

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

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

46. - E9D02

How can linearly polarized Yagi antennas be used to produce circular polarization?

Select	Answer
A	Arrange two Yagis perpendicular to each other with the driven elements at the same point on the boom fed 90 degrees out of phase
B	Arrange two Yagis collinear to each other with the driven elements fed 180 degrees out of phase
C	Stack two Yagis fed 90 degrees out of phase to form an array with the respective elements in parallel planes
D	Stack two Yagis fed in phase to form an array with the respective elements in parallel planes

47. - E9E09

Which of the following is used to shunt-feed a grounded tower at its base?

Select	Answer
A	Gamma match
B	Hairpin match
C	All these choices are correct
D	Double-bazooka match

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 higher velocity factor
C	Foam dielectric has lower safe operating voltage limits
D	Foam dielectric has lower loss per unit of length

49. - E9G07

On the Smith chart shown in Figure E9-3, what is the only straight line shown?

Select	Answer
A	The voltage axis
B	The current axis
C	The resistance axis
D	The reactance axis

50. - E9H02

Which is generally true for low band (160 meter and 80 meter) receiving antennas?

Select	Answer
A	They must be erected at least 1/2 wavelength above the ground to attain good directivity
B	Atmospheric noise is so high that gain over a dipole is not important
C	All these choices are correct
D	Low loss coax transmission line is essential for good performance

Figure E5-1

Figure E7-1

Figure E9-3