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

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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	Beryllium Oxide
C	Zinc oxide
D	Uranium Hexafluoride

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	14.100 MHz
B	14.070 MHz
C	14.349 MHz
D	14.149 MHz

3. - E1B03

Within what distance must an amateur station protect an FCC monitoring facility from harmful interference?

Select	Answer
A	3 miles
B	1 mile
C	30 miles
D	10 miles

4. - E1C09

What is the highest modulation index permitted at the highest modulation frequency for angle modulation below 29.0 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	2.0
B	3.0
C	0.5
D	1.0

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. - E1E06

Who is responsible for the proper conduct and necessary supervision during an amateur operator license examination session?

Select	Answer
A	Each administering VE
B	The VE session manager
C	The FCC
D	The VEC coordinating the session

7. - E1F11

Which of the following best describes one of the standards that must be met by an external RF power amplifier if it is to qualify for a grant of FCC certification?

Select	Answer
A	It must satisfy the FCC's spurious emission standards when operated at the lesser of 1500 watts or its full output power
B	It must produce full legal output when driven by not more than 5 watts of mean RF input power
C	It must exhibit a gain of 0 dB or less over its full output range
D	It must be capable of external RF switching between its input and output networks

8. - E2A10

What type of satellite appears to stay in one position in the sky?

Select	Answer
A	Geomagnetic
B	LEO
C	Geostationary
D	HEO

9. - E2B09

What hardware, other than a receiver with SSB capability and a suitable computer, is needed to decode SSTV using Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM)?

Select	Answer
A	No other hardware is needed
B	A special front end limiter
C	A special IF converter
D	A special notch filter to remove synchronization pulses

10. - E2C09

What type of equipment is commonly used to implement an amateur radio mesh network?

Select	Answer
A	An optical cable connection between the USB ports of 2 separate computers
B	A 440 MHz transceiver with a 9600 baud modem
C	A 2 meter VHF transceiver with a 1200 baud modem
D	A wireless router running custom firmware

11. - E2D06

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

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

12. - E2E03

How is the timing of FT4 contacts organized?

Select	Answer
A	It depends on the lunar phase
B	Alternating transmissions at 7.5 second intervals
C	By exchanging ACK/NAK packets
D	Stations take turns on alternate days

13. - E3A08

When a meteor strikes the Earth's atmosphere, a cylindrical region of free electrons is formed at what layer of the ionosphere?

Select	Answer
A	The E layer
B	The D layer
C	The F1 layer
D	The F2 layer

14. - E3B12

What is the primary characteristic of chordal hop propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Successive ionospheric refractions without an intermediate reflection from the ground
B	Propagation away from the great circle bearing between stations
C	Signals reflected back toward the transmitting station
D	Propagation across the geomagnetic equator

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 increases
D	It decreases

16. - E4A03

Which of the following test instruments is used to display spurious signals and/or intermodulation distortion products generated by an SSB transmitter?

Select	Answer
A	A spectrum analyzer
B	A wattmeter
C	A logic analyzer
D	A time-domain reflectometer

17. - E4B07

What do the subscripts of S parameters represent?

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

18. - E4C11

Why can an attenuator be used to reduce receiver overload on the lower frequency HF bands with little or no impact on signal-to-noise ratio?

Select	Answer
A	Signals are attenuated separately from the noise
B	The attenuator has a noise filter to suppress interference
C	Atmospheric noise is generally greater than internally generated noise even after attenuation
D	The attenuator has a low-pass filter to increase the strength of lower frequency signals

19. - E4D10

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

Select	Answer
A	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
B	Signals less than 40 dBm will not generate audible third-order intermodulation products
C	The receiver can tolerate signals up to 40 dB above the noise floor without producing third-order intermodulation products
D	A pair of 1 mW input signals will produce a third-order intermodulation product that is 40 dB stronger than the input signal

20. - E4E08

What current flows equally on all conductors of an unshielded multi-conductor cable?

Select	Answer
A	Common-mode current
B	Differential-mode current
C	Return current
D	Reactive current only

21. - E5A11

What is the half-power bandwidth of a resonant circuit that has a resonant frequency of 7.1 MHz and a Q of 150?

Select	Answer
A	47.3 kHz
B	315.6 Hz
C	23.67 kHz
D	157.8 Hz

22. - E5B10

What is the relationship between the AC current through an inductor and the voltage across an inductor?

Select	Answer
A	Voltage and current are 180 degrees out of phase
B	Current leads voltage by 90 degrees
C	Voltage and current are in phase
D	Voltage leads current by 90 degrees

23. - E5C01

Which of the following represents capacitive reactance in rectangular notation?

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

24. - E5D14

What is reactive power?

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

25. - E6A05

How does DC input impedance at the gate of a field-effect transistor compare with the DC input impedance of a bipolar transistor?

Select	Answer
A	An FET has lower input impedance
B	An FET has higher input impedance
C	They are both high impedance
D	They are both low impedance

26. - E6B10

In Figure E6-2, what is the schematic symbol for a light-emitting diode?

Select	Answer
A	7
B	5
C	6
D	1

27. - E6C10

In Figure E6-3, what is the schematic symbol for a NOR gate?

Select	Answer
A	1
B	2
C	4
D	3

28. - E6D11

Which type of core material decreases inductance when inserted into a coil?

Select	Answer
A	Powdered iron
B	Ferrite
C	Ceramic
D	Brass

29. - E6E01

Why is gallium arsenide (GaAs) useful for semiconductor devices operating at UHF and higher frequencies?

Select	Answer
A	Lower junction voltage drop
B	Higher noise figures
C	Higher electron mobility
D	Lower transconductance

30. - E6F03

What is the most common configuration of an optoisolator or optocoupler?

Select	Answer
A	A frequency modulated helium-neon laser
B	A lens and a photomultiplier
C	An LED and a phototransistor
D	An amplitude modulated helium-neon laser

31. - E7A05

Which of the following is a circuit that continuously alternates between two states without an external clock?

Select	Answer
A	Monostable multivibrator
B	J-K flip-flop
C	Astable multivibrator
D	T flip-flop

32. - E7B18

What is a characteristic of a grounded-grid amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	High filament voltage
B	High power gain
C	Low input impedance
D	Low bandwidth

33. - E7C12

What is one advantage of a Pi-matching network over an L-matching network consisting of a single inductor and a single capacitor?

Select	Answer
A	The Q of Pi-networks can be controlled
B	Pi-networks are more stable
C	Pi-networks provide balanced input and output
D	L-networks cannot perform impedance transformation

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	Output voltage multiplied by output current
C	Input voltage multiplied by input current
D	Input voltage divided by output current

35. - E7E02

What is the function of a reactance modulator?

Select	Answer
A	To produce AM signals by using an electrically variable resistance
B	To produce PM or FM signals by using an electrically variable inductance or capacitance
C	To produce AM signals by using an electrically variable inductance or capacitance
D	To produce PM signals by using an electrically variable resistance

36. - E7F09

Why is an anti-aliasing digital filter required in a digital decimator?

Select	Answer
A	It peaks the response of the decimator, improving bandwidth
B	It removes low-frequency signal components to eliminate the need for DC restoration
C	It notches out the sampling frequency to avoid sampling errors
D	It removes high-frequency signal components that would otherwise be reproduced as lower frequency components

37. - E7G06

What is the gain-bandwidth of an operational amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	The maximum frequency for a filter circuit using that type of amplifier
B	The frequency at which the open-loop gain of the amplifier equals one
C	The frequency at which the amplifier's offset voltage is zero
D	The gain of the amplifier at a filter's cutoff frequency

38. - E7H08

Which of the following components can be used to reduce thermal drift in crystal oscillators?

Select	Answer
A	Wirewound resistors
B	Non-inductive resistors
C	Toroidal inductors
D	NP0 capacitors

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	Immunity to out-of-sequence coding reduces spurious responses
C	Very low power consumption decreases frequency drift
D	Very high speed allows digitizing high frequencies

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 frequency modulation technique that uses non-harmonically related frequencies
C	A digital mode for narrow-band, slow-speed transmissions
D	A bandwidth compression technique using Fourier transforms

41. - E8C08

How does ARQ accomplish error correction?

Select	Answer
A	If errors are detected, a retransmission is requested
B	Special binary codes provide automatic correction
C	Special polynomial codes provide automatic correction
D	If errors are detected, redundant data is substituted

42. - E8D09

What is considered an acceptable maximum IMD level for an idling PSK signal?

Select	Answer
A	+15 dB
B	-20 dB
C	+10 dB
D	-30 dB

43. - E9A02

What is the effective radiated power relative to a dipole of a repeater station with 150 watts transmitter power output, 2 dB feed line loss, 2.2 dB duplexer loss, and 7 dBd antenna gain?

Select	Answer
A	78.7 watts
B	286 watts
C	1977 watts
D	420 watts

44. - E9B03

In the antenna radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-1, what is the front-to-side ratio?

Select	Answer
A	14 dB
B	12 dB
C	18 dB
D	24 dB

45. - E9C12

Which of the following describes an Extended Double Zepp antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A center-fed 1.25-wavelength antenna (two 5/8-wave elements in phase)
B	A portable antenna erected using two push support poles
C	A wideband vertical antenna constructed from precisely tapered aluminum tubing
D	An end-fed folded dipole antenna

46. - E9D04

Why should an HF mobile antenna loading coil have a high ratio of reactance to resistance?

Select	Answer
A	To minimize the Q
B	To swamp out harmonics
C	To lower the radiation angle
D	To minimize losses

47. - E9E01

What system matches a higher-impedance transmission line to a lower-impedance antenna by connecting the line to the driven element in two places spaced a fraction of a wavelength each side of element center?

Select	Answer
A	The omega matching system
B	The delta matching system
C	The gamma matching system
D	The stub matching system

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	6.9 meters
B	5.2 meters
C	10.4 meters
D	8.3 meters

49. - E9G11

How are the wavelength scales on a Smith chart calibrated?

Select	Answer
A	In fractions of antenna electrical wavelength
B	In fractions of transmission line electrical frequency
C	In fractions of antenna electrical frequency
D	In fractions of transmission line electrical wavelength

50. - E9H04

What is an advantage of placing a grounded electrostatic shield around a small loop direction-finding antenna?

Select	Answer
A	It eliminates tracking errors caused by strong out-of-band signals
B	It adds capacitive loading, increasing the bandwidth of the antenna
C	It increases signal strength by providing a better match to the feed line
D	It eliminates unbalanced capacitive coupling to the surroundings, improving the nulls

Figure E6-2

Figure E6-3

Figure E9-1