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	Uranium Hexafluoride
B	Zinc oxide
C	Mica
D	Beryllium Oxide

2. - E1A10

If an amateur station is installed aboard a ship or aircraft, what condition must be met before the station is operated?

Select	Answer
A	The amateur station operator must agree not to transmit when the main radio of the ship or aircraft is in use
B	Its operation must be approved by the master of the ship or the pilot in command of the aircraft
C	The amateur operator must have an FCC Marine or Aircraft endorsement on his or her amateur license
D	The amateur station must have a power supply that is completely independent of the main ship or aircraft power supply

3. - E1B01

Which of the following constitutes a spurious emission?

Select	Answer
A	An emission outside the signal's necessary bandwidth that can be reduced or eliminated without affecting the information transmitted
B	An amateur station transmission made without the proper call sign identification
C	A signal transmitted to prevent its detection by any station other than the intended recipient
D	Any transmitted signal that unintentionally interferes with another licensed radio station

4. - E1C08

What is the maximum permissible duration of a remotely controlled station's transmissions if its control link malfunctions?

Select	Answer
A	30 seconds
B	10 minutes
C	3 minutes
D	5 minutes

5. - E1D11

Which amateur stations are eligible to operate as Earth stations?

Select	Answer
A	Only those of General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators
B	Any amateur station, subject to the privileges of the class of operator license held by the control operator
C	Any amateur station whose licensee has filed a pre-space notification with the FCC's International Bureau
D	Only those of Amateur Extra Class operators

6. - E1E11

What must the VE team do if an examinee scores a passing grade on all examination elements needed for an upgrade or new license?

Select	Answer
A	Three VEs must certify that the examinee is qualified for the license grant and that they have complied with the administering VE requirements
B	Issue the examinee the new or upgrade license
C	All these choices are correct
D	Photocopy all examination documents and forward them to the FCC for processing

7. - E1F05

Amateur stations may not transmit in which of the following frequency segments if they are located in the contiguous 48 states and north of Line A?

Select	Answer
A	440 MHz - 450 MHz
B	53 MHz - 54 MHz
C	420 MHz - 430 MHz
D	222 MHz - 223 MHz

8. - E2A11

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

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

9. - E2B08

What technique allows commercial analog TV receivers to be used for fast-scan TV operations on the 70 cm band?

Select	Answer
A	Transmitting on channels shared with cable TV
B	Transmitting on the abandoned TV channel 2
C	Using converted satellite TV dishes
D	Using USB and demodulating the signal with a computer sound card

10. - E2C02

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

Select	Answer
A	A manual technique for rapidly zero beating or tuning to a station's frequency before calling that station
B	The often-prohibited practice of posting one's own call sign and frequency on a spotting network
C	The acceptable practice of manually posting the call signs of stations 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	Judging optimum transmission times by monitoring beacons reflected from the moon
B	High-speed CW identification to avoid fading
C	Time synchronous transmissions alternately from each station
D	Storing and forwarding digital messages

12. - E2E13

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

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

13. - E3A04

What do Hepburn maps predict?

Select	Answer
A	Probability of tropospheric propagation
B	Locations of auroral reflecting zones
C	Sporadic E propagation
D	Likelihood of rain scatter along cold or warm fronts

14. - E3B03

What is the best time of day for transequatorial propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Noon
B	Morning
C	Late at night
D	Afternoon or early evening

15. - E3C12

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

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

16. - E4A02

Which of the following parameters does a spectrum analyzer display on the vertical and horizontal axes?

Select	Answer
A	RF amplitude and time
B	SWR and time
C	RF amplitude and frequency
D	SWR and frequency

17. - E4B07

What do the subscripts of S parameters represent?

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

18. - E4C15

What is reciprocal mixing?

Select	Answer
A	In-phase signals cancelling in a mixer resulting in loss of receiver sensitivity
B	Local oscillator phase noise mixing with adjacent strong signals to create interference to desired signals
C	Two out-of-band signals mixing to generate an in-band spurious signal
D	Two digital signals combining from alternate time slots

19. - E4D08

What causes intermodulation in an electronic circuit?

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

20. - E4E04

How can conducted and radiated noise caused by an automobile alternator be suppressed?

Select	Answer
A	By installing filter capacitors in series with the DC power lead and a blocking capacitor in the field lead
B	By installing a noise suppression resistor and a blocking capacitor in both leads
C	By installing a high-pass filter in series with the radio's power lead and a low-pass filter in parallel with the field lead
D	By connecting the radio's power leads directly to the battery and by installing coaxial capacitors in line with the alternator leads

21. - E5A01

What can cause the voltage across reactances in a series RLC circuit to be higher than the voltage applied to the entire circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Resonance
B	Conductance
C	Resistance
D	Capacitance

22. - E5B06

What is susceptance?

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

23. - E5C10

Which point on Figure E5-1 best represents the impedance of a series circuit consisting of a 400-ohm resistor and a 38-picofarad capacitor at 14 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	Point 5
B	Point 4
C	Point 2
D	Point 6

24. - E5D03

What is microstrip?

Select	Answer
A	Lightweight transmission line made of common zip cord
B	Miniature coax used for low power applications
C	Short lengths of coax mounted on printed circuit boards to minimize time delay between microwave circuits
D	Precision printed circuit conductors above a ground plane that provide constant impedance interconnects at microwave frequencies

25. - E6A12

Why do many MOSFET devices have internally connected Zener diodes on the gates?

Select	Answer
A	To reduce the chance of static damage to the gate
B	To provide a voltage reference for the correct amount of reverse-bias gate voltage
C	To protect the substrate from excessive voltages
D	To keep the gate voltage within specifications and prevent the device from overheating

26. - E6B06

Which of the following is a common use of a Schottky diode?

Select	Answer
A	As a rectifier in high current power supplies
B	As a VHF/UHF mixer or detector
C	As a variable capacitance in an automatic frequency control circuit
D	As a constant voltage reference in a power supply

27. - E6C03

What is tri-state logic?

Select	Answer
A	Low-power logic devices designed to operate at 3 volts
B	Logic devices that utilize ternary math
C	Logic devices with 0, 1, and high-impedance output states
D	Proprietary logic devices manufactured by Tri-State Devices

28. - E6D13

What is the primary cause of inductor self-resonance?

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

29. - E6E07

What type of transmission line is used for connections to MMICs?

Select	Answer
A	Miniature coax
B	Circular waveguide
C	Parallel wire
D	Microstrip

30. - E6F03

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

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

31. - E7A09

What logical operation is performed by an exclusive NOR gate?

Select	Answer
A	It produces logic 0 at its output if only one input is logic 1
B	It produces logic 1 at its output if only one input is logic 1
C	It produces logic 0 at its output only if all inputs are logic 0
D	It produces logic 1 at its output only if all inputs are logic 1

32. - E7B11

In Figure E7-1, what is the purpose of R3?

Select	Answer
A	Output load resistor
B	Self bias
C	Fixed bias
D	Emitter bypass

33. - E7C07

Which describes a Pi-L-network used for matching a vacuum tube final amplifier to a 50-ohm unbalanced output?

Select	Answer
A	A network with only three discrete parts
B	A Phase Inverter Load network
C	A matching network in which all components are isolated from ground
D	A Pi-network with an additional series inductor on the output

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. - E7E06

Why is de-emphasis commonly used in FM communications receivers?

Select	Answer
A	For higher efficiency
B	To reduce impulse noise reception
C	To remove third-order distortion products
D	For compatibility with transmitters using phase modulation

36. - E7F01

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

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

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 output voltage of the op-amp minus its input voltage
C	The difference between the output voltage of the op-amp and the input voltage required in the immediately following stage
D	The differential input voltage needed to bring the open loop output voltage to zero

38. - E7H06

Which of the following oscillator circuits are commonly used in VFOs?

Select	Answer
A	Negative feedback and balanced feedback
B	Pierce and Zener
C	Armstrong and deForest
D	Colpitts and Hartley

39. - E8A09

How many different input levels can be encoded by an analog-to-digital converter with 8-bit resolution?

Select	Answer
A	256
B	8 multiplied by the gain of the input amplifier
C	256 divided by the gain of the input amplifier
D	8

40. - E8B09

What is deviation ratio?

Select	Answer
A	The ratio of the highest audio modulating frequency to the average audio modulating frequency
B	The ratio of the carrier center frequency to the audio modulating frequency
C	The ratio of the audio modulating frequency to the center carrier frequency
D	The ratio of the maximum carrier frequency deviation to the highest audio modulating frequency

41. - E8C02

What is the definition of symbol rate in a digital transmission?

Select	Answer
A	The duration of each bit in a message sent over the air
B	The number of characters carried per second by the station-to-station link
C	The rate at which the waveform changes to convey information
D	The number of control characters in a message packet

42. - E8D01

Why are received spread spectrum signals resistant to interference?

Select	Answer
A	The receiver is always equipped with a digital blanker
B	Signals not using the spread spectrum algorithm are suppressed in the receiver
C	The high power used by a spread spectrum transmitter keeps its signal from being easily overpowered
D	If interference is detected by the receiver it will signal the transmitter to change frequencies

43. - E9A12

How much gain does an antenna have compared to a 1/2-wavelength dipole when it has 6 dB gain over an isotropic antenna?

Select	Answer
A	6.0 dB
B	8.15 dB
C	3.85 dB
D	2.79 dB

44. - E9B10

What is the principle of a Method of Moments analysis?

Select	Answer
A	A wire is modeled as a single sine-wave voltage source
B	A wire is modeled as a single sine-wave current generator
C	A wire is modeled as a series of segments, each having a distinct value of voltage across it
D	A wire is modeled as a series of segments, each having a uniform value of current

45. - E9C12

Which of the following describes an Extended Double Zepp antenna?

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

46. - E9D09

What is the function of a loading coil used as part of an HF mobile antenna?

Select	Answer
A	To cancel capacitive reactance
B	To lower the losses
C	To increase the SWR bandwidth
D	To lower the Q

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

48. - E9F01

What is the velocity factor of a transmission line?

Select	Answer
A	The velocity of the wave in the transmission line divided by the velocity of light in a vacuum
B	The index of shielding for coaxial cable
C	The velocity of the wave in the transmission line multiplied by the velocity of light in a vacuum
D	The ratio of the characteristic impedance of the line to the terminating impedance

49. - E9G03

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

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

50. - E9H01

When constructing a Beverage antenna, which of the following factors should be included in the design to achieve good performance at the desired frequency?

Select	Answer
A	Its overall length must not exceed 1/4 wavelength
B	It should be configured as a four-sided loop
C	It should be one or more wavelengths long
D	It must be mounted more than 1 wavelength above ground

Figure E5-1

Figure E7-1