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

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1. - E0A08

What does SAR measure?

Select	Answer
A	The rate of RF energy reflected from stationary terrain
B	Synthetic Aperture Ratio of the human body
C	Signal Amplification Rating
D	The rate at which RF energy is absorbed by the body

2. - E1A09

What action or actions should you take if your digital message forwarding station inadvertently forwards a communication that violates FCC rules?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	Notify the originating station that the communication does not comply with FCC rules
C	Notify the nearest FCC Field Engineers office
D	Discontinue forwarding the communication as soon as you become aware of it

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

4. - E1C07

At what level below a signal's mean power level is its bandwidth determined according to FCC rules?

Select	Answer
A	3 dB
B	23 dB
C	26 dB
D	6 dB

5. - E1D07

Which HF amateur bands have frequencies authorized for space stations?

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

6. - E1E03

What is a Volunteer Examiner Coordinator?

Select	Answer
A	A person who has volunteered to administer amateur operator license examinations
B	An organization that has entered into an agreement with the FCC to coordinate, prepare, and administer amateur operator license examinations
C	The person who has entered into an agreement with the FCC to be the VE session manager
D	A person who has volunteered to prepare amateur operator license examinations

7. - E1F10

Who may be the control operator of an auxiliary station?

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

8. - E2A03

How is the signal inverted by an inverting linear transponder?

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

9. - E2B07

What is the name of the signal component that carries color information in NTSC video?

Select	Answer
A	Spectral intensity
B	Chroma
C	Luminance
D	Hue

10. - E2C10

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

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

11. - E2D09

What type of modulation is used for JT65 contacts?

Select	Answer
A	PSK
B	RTTY
C	IEEE 802.11
D	Multi-tone AFSK

12. - E2E11

What is the difference between direct FSK and audio FSK?

Select	Answer
A	Only direct FSK can be decoded by computer
B	Direct FSK can transmit faster baud rates
C	Direct FSK occupies less bandwidth
D	Direct FSK applies the data signal to the transmitter VFO, while AFSK transmits tones via phone

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 F1 layer
C	The D layer
D	The F2 layer

14. - E3B06

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

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

15. - E3C02

What is indicated by a rising A or K index?

Select	Answer
A	Decreasing disruption of the geomagnetic field
B	An increase in the critical frequency
C	Increasing disruption of the geomagnetic field
D	Higher levels of solar UV radiation

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	RF amplitude and frequency
C	SWR and time
D	SWR and frequency

17. - E4B03

Which S parameter is equivalent to forward gain?

Select	Answer
A	S12
B	S22
C	S21
D	S11

18. - E4C09

Which of the following choices is a good reason for selecting a high frequency for the design of the IF in a superheterodyne HF or VHF communications receiver?

Select	Answer
A	Improved receiver noise figure
B	Easier for front-end circuitry to eliminate image responses
C	Fewer components in the receiver
D	Reduced drift

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. - E4E09

What undesirable effect can occur when using an IF noise blanker?

Select	Answer
A	FM signals can no longer be demodulated
B	Received audio in the speech range might have an echo effect
C	Nearby signals may appear to be excessively wide even if they meet emission standards
D	The audio frequency bandwidth of the received signal might be compressed

21. - E5A09

How is the Q of an RLC parallel resonant circuit calculated?

Select	Answer
A	Reactance of the inductance multiplied by the reactance of the capacitance
B	Resistance divided by the reactance of either the inductance or capacitance
C	Reactance of either the inductance or capacitance divided by the resistance
D	Reactance of either the inductance or capacitance multiplied by the resistance

22. - E5B11

What is the phase angle between the voltage across and the current through a series RLC circuit if XC is 25 ohms, R is 100 ohms, and XL is 50 ohms?

Select	Answer
A	14 degrees with the voltage lagging the current
B	76 degrees with the voltage lagging the current
C	14 degrees with the voltage leading the current
D	76 degrees with the voltage leading the current

23. - E5C12

Which point on Figure E5-1 best represents the impedance of a series circuit consisting of a 300-ohm resistor and a 19-picofarad capacitor at 21.200 MHz?

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

24. - E5D11

What is the power factor of an RL circuit having a 60-degree phase angle between the voltage and the current?

Select	Answer
A	0.5
B	0.866
C	1.73
D	1.414

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

26. - E6B05

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

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

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 increase the sensitivity
D	To cause the output to change states continually

28. - E6D07

What is current in the primary winding of a transformer called if no load is attached to the secondary?

Select	Answer
A	Magnetizing current
B	Excitation current
C	Direct current
D	Stabilizing current

29. - E6E07

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

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

30. - E6F04

What is the photovoltaic effect?

Select	Answer
A	The conversion of voltage to current when exposed to light
B	The conversion of electrical energy to mechanical energy
C	The tendency of a battery to discharge when exposed to light
D	The conversion of light to electrical energy

31. - E7A06

What is a characteristic of a monostable multivibrator?

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

32. - E7B03

Which of the following components form the output of a class D amplifier circuit?

Select	Answer
A	A temperature compensating load resistor to improve linearity
B	A matched load resistor to prevent damage by switching transients
C	A low-pass filter to remove switching signal components
D	A high-pass filter to compensate for low gain at low frequencies

33. - E7C11

Which of the following describes a receiving filter's ability to reject signals occupying an adjacent channel?

Select	Answer
A	Shape factor
B	Noise factor
C	Passband ripple
D	Phase response

34. - E7D04

Which of the following types of linear voltage regulator usually make the most efficient use of the primary power source?

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

35. - E7E11

Which type of detector circuit is used for demodulating SSB signals?

Select	Answer
A	Phase detector
B	Discriminator
C	Phase comparator
D	Product detector

36. - E7F12

Which of the following is an advantage of a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter vs an Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) digital filter?

Select	Answer
A	FIR filters are easier to implement for a given set of passband rolloff requirements
B	FIR filters can delay all frequency components of the signal by the same amount
C	All these choices are correct
D	FIR filters can respond faster to impulses

37. - E7G02

What is ringing in a filter?

Select	Answer
A	A reduction in high frequency response
B	Undesired oscillations added to the desired signal
C	An echo caused by a long time delay
D	Partial cancellation of the signal over a range of frequencies

38. - E7H12

Which of the following must be done to ensure that a crystal oscillator provides the frequency specified by the crystal manufacturer?

Select	Answer
A	Bias the crystal at a specified voltage
B	Provide the crystal with a specified parallel capacitance
C	Bias the crystal at a specified current
D	Provide the crystal with a specified parallel inductance

39. - E8A11

Which of the following is a measure of the quality of an analog-to-digital converter?

Select	Answer
A	Reciprocal mixing
B	Peak envelope power
C	Total harmonic distortion
D	Power factor

40. - E8B02

How does the modulation index of a phase-modulated emission vary with RF carrier frequency?

Select	Answer
A	It decreases as the RF carrier frequency increases
B	It does not depend on the RF carrier frequency
C	It varies with the square root of the RF carrier frequency
D	It increases as the RF carrier frequency increases

41. - E8C02

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

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

42. - E8D07

What is a common cause of overmodulation of AFSK signals?

Select	Answer
A	Ground loops
B	Bit errors in the modem
C	Excessive numbers of retries
D	Excessive transmit audio levels

43. - E9A06

What is the effective radiated power relative to a dipole of a repeater station with 200 watts transmitter power output, 4 dB feed line loss, 3.2 dB duplexer loss, 0.8 dB circulator loss, and 10 dBd antenna gain?

Select	Answer
A	317 watts
B	300 watts
C	126 watts
D	2000 watts

44. - E9B01

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

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

45. - E9C10

Which of the following describes a Zepp antenna?

Select	Answer
A	An omni-directional antenna commonly used for satellite communications
B	An end-fed dipole antenna
C	A vertical array capable of quickly changing the direction of maximum radiation by changing phasing lines
D	A dipole constructed from zip cord

46. - E9D01

How much does the gain of an ideal parabolic dish antenna change when the operating frequency is doubled?

Select	Answer
A	6 dB
B	4 dB
C	3 dB
D	2 dB

47. - E9E04

What is the purpose of the series capacitor in a gamma-type antenna matching network?

Select	Answer
A	To provide DC isolation between the feed line and the antenna
B	To provide a rejection notch that prevents the radiation of harmonics
C	To cancel the inductive reactance of the matching network
D	To transform the antenna impedance to a higher value

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	8.3 meters
B	5.2 meters
C	10.4 meters
D	6.9 meters

49. - E9G05

Which of the following is a common use for a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Determine the gain of an antenna given the physical and electrical parameters
B	Determine the impedance of a transmission line, given the physical dimensions
C	Determine the loss/100 feet of a transmission line, given the velocity factor and conductor materials
D	Determine the length and position of an impedance matching stub

50. - E9H06

What is the triangulation method of direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	A fixed receiving station plots three headings to the signal source
B	Antenna headings from several different receiving locations are used to locate the signal source
C	The geometric angles of sky waves from the source are used to determine its position
D	A fixed receiving station uses three different antennas to plot the location of the signal source

Figure E5-1

Figure E9-1