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

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1. - E0A10

What toxic material may be present in some electronic components such as high voltage capacitors and transformers?

Select	Answer
A	Polymorphic silicon
B	Polychlorinated biphenyls
C	Polyethylene
D	Polytetrafluoroethylene

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

3. - E1B03

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

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

4. - E1C10

What is the permitted mean power of any spurious emission relative to the mean power of the fundamental emission from a station transmitter or external RF amplifier installed after January 1, 2003 and transmitting on a frequency below 30 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	At least 73 dB below
B	At least 53 dB below
C	At least 63 dB below
D	At least 43 dB below

5. - E1D04

Which of the following is required in the identification transmissions from a balloon-borne telemetry station?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	The station's six-character Maidenhead grid locator
C	Call sign
D	The output power of the balloon transmitter

6. - E1E01

For which types of out-of-pocket expenses do the Part 97 rules state that VEs and VECs may be reimbursed?

Select	Answer
A	Preparing, processing, administering, and coordinating an examination for an amateur radio operator license
B	Providing amateur operator license examination preparation training materials
C	Teaching an amateur operator license examination preparation course
D	No expenses are authorized for reimbursement

7. - E1F10

Who may be the control operator of an auxiliary station?

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

8. - E2A13

Which of the following techniques is normally used by low Earth orbiting digital satellites to relay messages around the world?

Select	Answer
A	Node hopping
B	Multi-satellite relaying
C	Store-and-forward
D	Digipeating

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

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 2 meter VHF transceiver with a 1200 baud modem
C	A wireless router running custom firmware
D	A 440 MHz transceiver with a 9600 baud modem

11. - E2D08

What type of packet frame is used to transmit APRS beacon data?

Select	Answer
A	Acknowledgement
B	Disconnect
C	Unnumbered Information
D	Connect

12. - E2E13

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

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

13. - E3A06

What might help to restore contact when DX signals become too weak to copy across an entire HF band a few hours after sunset?

Select	Answer
A	Switch to a higher frequency HF band
B	Wait 90 minutes or so for the signal degradation to pass
C	Switch to a lower frequency HF band
D	Wait 24 hours before attempting another communication on the band

14. - E3B04

What is meant by the terms "extraordinary" and "ordinary" waves?

Select	Answer
A	Extraordinary waves describe rare long-skip propagation compared to ordinary waves, which travel shorter distances
B	Refracted rays and reflected waves
C	Long-path and short-path waves
D	Independent waves created in the ionosphere that are elliptically polarized

15. - E3C06

By how much does the VHF/UHF radio horizon distance exceed the geometric horizon?

Select	Answer
A	By approximately 15 percent of the distance
B	By approximately four times the distance
C	By approximately twice the distance
D	By approximately 50 percent of the distance

16. - E4A07

Which of the following is an advantage of using an antenna analyzer compared to an SWR bridge to measure antenna SWR?

Select	Answer
A	Antenna analyzers display a time-varying representation of the modulation envelope
B	Antenna analyzers automatically tune your antenna for resonance
C	All these choices are correct
D	Antenna analyzers do not need an external RF source

17. - E4B08

Which of the following can be used to measure the Q of a series-tuned circuit?

Select	Answer
A	The inductance to capacitance ratio
B	The frequency shift
C	The resonant frequency of the circuit
D	The bandwidth of the circuit's frequency response

18. - E4C15

What is reciprocal mixing?

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

19. - E4D06

What is the term for spurious signals generated by the combination of two or more signals in a non-linear device or circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Neutralization
B	Intermodulation
C	Amplifier desensitization
D	Adjacent channel interference

20. - E4E03

Which of the following signals might a receiver noise blanker be able to remove from desired signals?

Select	Answer
A	Signals that appear at one IF but not another
B	Signals that are constant at all IF levels
C	Signals that have a sharply peaked frequency distribution
D	Signals that appear across a wide bandwidth

21. - E5A03

What is the magnitude of the impedance of a series RLC circuit at resonance?

Select	Answer
A	High, as compared to the circuit resistance
B	Approximately equal to capacitive reactance
C	Approximately equal to inductive reactance
D	Approximately equal to circuit resistance

22. - E5B09

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

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

23. - E5C01

Which of the following represents capacitive reactance in rectangular notation?

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

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	0.866
B	0.5
C	1.0
D	0.707

25. - E6A09

What is a depletion-mode FET?

Select	Answer
A	Any FET without a channel
B	An FET that exhibits a current flow between source and drain when no gate voltage is applied
C	Any FET for which holes are the majority carriers
D	An FET that has no current flow between source and drain when no gate voltage is applied

26. - E6B02

What is an important characteristic of a Schottky diode as compared to an ordinary silicon diode when used as a power supply rectifier?

Select	Answer
A	More constant reverse avalanche voltage
B	Less forward voltage drop
C	Longer carrier retention time
D	Much higher reverse voltage breakdown

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

28. - E6D06

What core material property determines the inductance of an inductor?

Select	Answer
A	Permeability
B	Resistance
C	Thermal impedance
D	Reactivity

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	Lower transconductance
C	Higher noise figures
D	Higher electron mobility

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 conversion of light to electrical energy
D	The tendency of a battery to discharge when exposed to light

31. - E7A04

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

Select	Answer
A	1
B	8
C	2
D	4

32. - E7B18

What is a characteristic of a grounded-grid amplifier?

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

33. - E7C10

Which of the following filters would be the best choice for use in a 2 meter band repeater duplexer?

Select	Answer
A	A cavity filter
B	A crystal filter
C	An L-C filter
D	A DSP filter

34. - E7D08

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

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

35. - E7E09

What occurs when an excessive amount of signal energy reaches a mixer circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Mixer blanking occurs
B	Spurious mixer products are generated
C	A beat frequency is generated
D	Automatic limiting occurs

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. - E7G04

What is meant by the "op-amp input offset voltage"?

Select	Answer
A	The differential input voltage needed to bring the open loop output voltage to zero
B	The difference between the output voltage of the op-amp and the input voltage required in the immediately following stage
C	The potential between the amplifier input terminals of the op-amp in an open loop condition
D	The output voltage of the op-amp minus its input voltage

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 hybrid synthesizer
B	A direct digital synthesizer
C	A diode-switching matrix synthesizer
D	A phase-locked loop 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	Immunity to out-of-sequence coding reduces spurious responses
C	Very high speed allows digitizing high frequencies
D	Very low power consumption decreases frequency drift

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	3000
C	1000
D	0.3

41. - E8C09

Which digital code allows only one bit to change between sequential code values?

Select	Answer
A	Binary Coded Decimal Code
B	Gray code
C	Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code
D	Excess 3 code

42. - E8D06

What is the advantage of including parity bits in ASCII characters?

Select	Answer
A	Some types of errors can be detected
B	Foreign language characters can be sent
C	Faster transmission rate
D	The signal can overpower interfering signals

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	1977 watts
B	420 watts
C	78.7 watts
D	286 watts

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

45. - E9C14

How does the performance of a horizontally polarized antenna mounted on the side of a hill compare with the same antenna mounted on flat ground?

Select	Answer
A	The main lobe takeoff angle increases in the downhill direction
B	The horizontal beamwidth increases in the uphill direction
C	The main lobe takeoff angle decreases in the downhill direction
D	The horizontal beamwidth decreases in the downhill direction

46. - E9D06

What happens to the SWR bandwidth when one or more loading coils are used to resonate an electrically short antenna?

Select	Answer
A	It is unchanged if the loading coil is located at the feed point
B	It is decreased
C	It is increased
D	It is unchanged if the loading coil is located at a voltage maximum point

47. - E9E10

Which of these choices is an effective way to match an antenna with a 100-ohm feed point impedance to a 50-ohm coaxial cable feed line?

Select	Answer
A	Insert a 1/4-wavelength piece of 75-ohm coaxial cable transmission line in series between the antenna terminals and the 50-ohm feed cable
B	Connect a 1/4-wavelength open stub of 300-ohm twinlead in parallel with the coaxial feed line where it connects to the antenna
C	Insert a 1/2 wavelength piece of 300-ohm twinlead in series between the antenna terminals and the 50-ohm feed cable
D	Connect a 1/2 wavelength shorted stub of 75-ohm cable in parallel with the 50-ohm cable where it attaches to the antenna

48. - E9F01

What is the velocity factor of a transmission line?

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

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	Coaxial-length circles
D	Antenna-length circles

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

Figure E7-2