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

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1. - E0A04

When evaluating a site with multiple transmitters operating at the same time, the operators and licensees of which transmitters are responsible for mitigating over-exposure situations?

Select	Answer
A	Only commercial transmitters
B	Each transmitter that produces 5 percent or more of its MPE limit in areas where the total MPE limit is exceeded.
C	Each transmitter operating with a duty cycle greater than 50 percent
D	Only the most powerful transmitter

2. - E1A04

With your transceiver displaying the carrier frequency of phone signals, you hear a DX station calling CQ on 3.601 MHz LSB. Is it legal to return the call using lower sideband on the same frequency?

Select	Answer
A	Yes, because the DX station initiated the contact
B	Yes, because the displayed frequency is within the 75 meter phone band segment
C	No, the sideband will extend beyond the edge of the phone band segment
D	No, U.S. stations are not permitted to use phone emissions below 3.610 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 proposal must be submitted to the National Park Service
B	A letter of intent must be filed with the Environmental Protection Agency
C	An Environmental Assessment must be submitted to the FCC
D	A form FSD-15 must be submitted to the Department of the Interior

4. - E1C04

What is meant by IARP?

Select	Answer
A	A forecast of intermittent aurora radio propagation
B	The internal amateur radio practices policy of the FCC
C	An indication of increased antenna reflected power
D	An international amateur radio permit that allows U.S. amateurs to operate in certain countries of the Americas

5. - E1D02

Which of the following may transmit special codes intended to obscure the meaning of messages?

Select	Answer
A	Data containing personal information
B	Telecommand signals from a space telecommand station
C	Auxiliary relay links carrying repeater audio
D	Binary control characters

6. - E1E06

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

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

7. - E1F02

What privileges are authorized in the U.S. to persons holding an amateur service license granted by the government of Canada?

Select	Answer
A	None, they must obtain a U.S. license
B	The operating terms and conditions of the Canadian amateur service license, not to exceed U.S. Amateur Extra Class license privileges
C	All privileges of the Amateur Extra Class license
D	Full privileges, up to and including those of the Amateur Extra Class license, on the 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meter bands

8. - E2A01

What is the direction of an ascending pass for an amateur satellite?

Select	Answer
A	From north to south
B	From south to north
C	From east to west
D	From west to east

9. - E2B10

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

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

10. - E2C09

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

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

11. - E2D06

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

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

12. - E2E06

What is the most common data rate used for HF packet?

Select	Answer
A	110 baud
B	1200 baud
C	300 baud
D	48 baud

13. - E3A05

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

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

14. - E3B03

What is the best time of day for transequatorial propagation?

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

15. - E3C14

Why does the radio-path horizon distance exceed the geometric horizon?

Select	Answer
A	E-region skip
B	Downward bending due to density variations in the atmosphere
C	Due to the Doppler effect
D	D-region skip

16. - E4A08

Which of the following measures SWR?

Select	Answer
A	An ohmmeter
B	A spectrum analyzer
C	A Q meter
D	An antenna analyzer

17. - E4B07

What do the subscripts of S parameters represent?

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

18. - E4C05

What does a receiver noise floor of -174 dBm represent?

Select	Answer
A	The noise figure of a 1 Hz bandwidth receiver
B	The galactic noise contribution to minimum detectable signal
C	The theoretical noise in a 1 Hz bandwidth at the input of a perfect receiver at room temperature
D	The minimum detectable signal as a function of receive frequency

19. - E4D08

What causes intermodulation in an electronic circuit?

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

20. - E4E08

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

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

21. - E5A15

Which of the following increases Q for inductors and capacitors?

Select	Answer
A	Lower reactance
B	Lower losses
C	Higher self-resonant frequency
D	Lower self-resonant frequency

22. - E5B09

What is the relationship between the AC current through a capacitor and the voltage across a capacitor?

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

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 1
B	Point 8
C	Point 7
D	Point 3

24. - E5D15

What is the power factor of an RL circuit having a 45-degree phase angle between the voltage and the current?

Select	Answer
A	0.5
B	0.707
C	1.0
D	0.866

25. - E6A04

What is the name given to an impurity atom that adds holes to a semiconductor crystal structure?

Select	Answer
A	N-type impurity
B	Donor impurity
C	Insulator impurity
D	Acceptor impurity

26. - E6B03

What type of bias is required for an LED to emit light?

Select	Answer
A	Reverse bias
B	Zero bias
C	Forward bias
D	Inductive bias

27. - E6C07

What best describes a pull-up or pull-down resistor?

Select	Answer
A	A resistor in a keying circuit used to reduce key clicks
B	A resistor connected to an op-amp output that prevents signals from exceeding the power supply voltage
C	A resistor that ensures that an oscillator frequency does not drift
D	A resistor connected to the positive or negative supply line used to establish a voltage when an input or output is an open circuit

28. - E6D12

What is inductor saturation?

Select	Answer
A	Adjacent inductors become over-coupled
B	The ability of the inductor's core to store magnetic energy has been exceeded
C	The inductor's voltage rating is exceeded causing a flashover
D	The inductor windings are over-coupled

29. - E6E10

What advantage does surface-mount technology offer at RF compared to using through-hole components?

Select	Answer
A	Smaller circuit area
B	All these choices are correct
C	Components have less parasitic inductance and capacitance
D	Shorter circuit-board traces

30. - E6F01

What absorbs the energy from light falling on a photovoltaic cell?

Select	Answer
A	Protons
B	Electrons
C	Holes
D	Photons

31. - E7A04

How many flip-flops are required to divide a signal frequency by 4?

Select	Answer
A	8
B	1
C	2
D	4

32. - E7B18

What is a characteristic of a grounded-grid amplifier?

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

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 provide balanced input and output
C	L-networks cannot perform impedance transformation
D	Pi-networks are more stable

34. - E7D08

What type of circuit is shown in Figure E7-2?

Select	Answer
A	Monostable multivibrator
B	Linear voltage regulator
C	Grounded emitter amplifier
D	Switching voltage regulator

35. - E7E05

What circuit is added to an FM transmitter to boost the higher audio frequencies?

Select	Answer
A	A heterodyne suppressor
B	A de-emphasis network
C	A pre-emphasis network
D	A heterodyne enhancer

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	Incoming RF is digitized by an analog-to-digital converter without being mixed with a local oscillator signal
C	Software is converted from source code to object code during operation of the receiver
D	Incoming RF is converted to a control voltage for a voltage controlled oscillator

37. - E7G03

What is the typical input impedance of an op-amp?

Select	Answer
A	1000 ohms
B	Very low
C	Very high
D	100 ohms

38. - E7H04

How is positive feedback supplied in a Colpitts oscillator?

Select	Answer
A	Through link coupling
B	Through a capacitive divider
C	Through a neutralizing capacitor
D	Through a tapped coil

39. - E8A06

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

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

40. - E8B05

What is the deviation ratio of an FM-phone signal having a maximum frequency swing of plus-or-minus 5 kHz when the maximum modulation frequency is 3 kHz?

Select	Answer
A	0.6
B	1.67
C	0.167
D	60

41. - E8C06

What is the bandwidth of a 170-hertz shift, 300-baud ASCII transmission?

Select	Answer
A	0.1 Hz
B	1.0 kHz
C	0.5 kHz
D	0.3 kHz

42. - E8D04

What is the primary effect of extremely short rise or fall time on a CW signal?

Select	Answer
A	Limits data speed
B	More difficult to copy
C	The generation of RF harmonics
D	The generation of key clicks

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	8.15 dB
B	2.79 dB
C	3.85 dB
D	6.0 dB

44. - E9B04

What is the front-to-back ratio of the radiation pattern shown in Figure E92?

Select	Answer
A	15 dB
B	3 dB
C	28 dB
D	38 dB

45. - E9C07

What is the approximate feed point impedance at the center of a two-wire folded dipole antenna?

Select	Answer
A	50 ohms
B	300 ohms
C	450 ohms
D	72 ohms

46. - E9D03

Where should a high Q loading coil be placed to minimize losses in a shortened vertical antenna?

Select	Answer
A	As low as possible on the vertical radiator
B	As close to the transmitter as possible
C	At a voltage node
D	Near the center of the vertical radiator

47. - E9E09

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

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

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	Foam dielectric has lower safe operating voltage limits
B	All these choices are correct
C	Foam dielectric has lower loss per unit of length
D	Foam dielectric has higher velocity factor

49. - E9G09

What third family of circles is often added to a Smith chart during the process of solving problems?

Select	Answer
A	Standing wave ratio circles
B	Radiation-pattern circles
C	Antenna-length circles
D	Coaxial-length circles

50. - E9H07

Why is RF attenuation used when direction-finding?

Select	Answer
A	To narrow the receiver bandwidth
B	To compensate for isotropic directivity and the antenna effect of feed lines
C	To prevent receiver overload which reduces pattern nulls
D	To increase receiver sensitivity

Figure E5-1

Figure E7-2