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

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1. - E0A02

When evaluating RF exposure levels from your station at a neighbor's home, what must you do?

Select	Answer
A	Ensure signals from your station are less than the uncontrolled Maximum Permitted Emission (MPE) limits
B	Ensure signals from your station are less than the controlled Maximum Permitted Exposure (MPE) limits
C	Ensure signals from your station are less than the controlled Maximum Permitted Emission (MPE) limits
D	Ensure signals from your station are less than the uncontrolled Maximum Permitted Exposure (MPE) limits

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	The amateur station must have a power supply that is completely independent of the main ship or aircraft power supply
C	Its operation must be approved by the master of the ship or the pilot in command of the aircraft
D	The amateur operator must have an FCC Marine or Aircraft endorsement on his or her amateur license

3. - E1B05

What is the National Radio Quiet Zone?

Select	Answer
A	An area surrounding the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
B	An area in New Mexico surrounding the White Sands Test Area
C	An area in Puerto Rico surrounding the Arecibo Radio Telescope
D	An area in Florida surrounding Cape Canaveral

4. - E1C04

What is meant by IARP?

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

5. - E1D12

Which of the following amateur stations may transmit one-way communications?

Select	Answer
A	A message forwarding station or automatically controlled digital station
B	All these choices are correct
C	A local repeater or linked repeater station
D	A space station, beacon station, or telecommand station

6. - E1E02

Who does Part 97 task with maintaining the pools of questions for all U.S. amateur license examinations?

Select	Answer
A	The ARRL
B	The VECs
C	The VEs
D	The FCC

7. - E1F04

Which of the following geographic descriptions approximately describes "Line A"?

Select	Answer
A	A line roughly parallel to and east of the U.S. Pacific coastline
B	A line roughly parallel to and west of the U.S. Atlantic coastline
C	A line roughly parallel to and south of the border between the U.S. and Canada
D	A line roughly parallel to and north of the border between the U.S. and Mexico

8. - E2A02

Which of the following occurs when a satellite is using an inverting linear transponder?

Select	Answer
A	Signal position in the band is reversed
B	All these choices are correct
C	Upper sideband on the uplink becomes lower sideband on the downlink, and vice versa
D	Doppler shift is reduced because the uplink and downlink shifts are in opposite directions

9. - E2B07

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

Select	Answer
A	Chroma
B	Luminance
C	Spectral intensity
D	Hue

10. - E2C03

From which of the following bands is amateur radio contesting generally excluded?

Select	Answer
A	33 centimeters
B	30 meters
C	2 meters
D	6 meters

11. - E2D11

Which of the following data are used by the APRS network to communicate station location?

Select	Answer
A	Radio direction finding spectrum analysis
B	Time and frequency
C	Polar coordinates
D	Latitude and longitude

12. - E2E03

How is the timing of FT4 contacts organized?

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

13. - E3A13

Which of these emission modes is best for auroral propagation?

Select	Answer
A	CW
B	SSB
C	RTTY
D	FM

14. - E3B11

At what time of day can sporadic E propagation occur?

Select	Answer
A	Any time
B	Only around sunset and sunrise
C	Only around sunset
D	Only in hours of darkness

15. - E3C08

What does the space weather term G5 mean?

Select	Answer
A	Moderate solar wind
B	Very low solar activity
C	An extreme geomagnetic storm
D	Waning sunspot numbers

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 frequency
C	SWR and time
D	RF amplitude and frequency

17. - E4B09

What is indicated if the current reading on an RF ammeter placed in series with the antenna feed line of a transmitter increases as the transmitter is tuned to resonance?

Select	Answer
A	There is an impedance mismatch between the antenna and feed line
B	The transmitter is not properly neutralized
C	There is more power going into the antenna
D	There is possibly a short to ground in the feed line

18. - E4C07

What does the MDS of a receiver represent?

Select	Answer
A	The multiplex distortion stability
B	The meter display sensitivity
C	The maximum detectable spectrum
D	The minimum discernible signal

19. - E4D11

Why are odd-order intermodulation products, created within a receiver, of particular interest compared to other products?

Select	Answer
A	Odd-order intermodulation produces three products for every input signal within the band of interest
B	Odd-order products are an indication of poor image rejection
C	Odd-order products overload the IF filters
D	Odd-order products of two signals in the band of interest are also likely to be within the band

20. - E4E05

How can radio frequency interference from an AC motor be suppressed?

Select	Answer
A	By installing a high-pass filter in series with the motor's power leads
B	By installing a brute-force AC-line filter in series with the motor leads
C	By installing a bypass capacitor in series with the motor leads
D	By using a ground-fault current interrupter in the circuit used to power the motor

21. - E5A07

What is the magnitude of the current at the input of a parallel RLC circuit at resonance?

Select	Answer
A	Minimum
B	Maximum
C	R/L
D	L/R

22. - E5B06

What is susceptance?

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

23. - E5C05

What is the name of the diagram used to show the phase relationship between impedances at a given frequency?

Select	Answer
A	Near field diagram
B	Phasor diagram
C	Venn diagram
D	Far field diagram

24. - E5D01

What is the result of skin effect?

Select	Answer
A	As frequency decreases, RF current flows in a thinner layer of the conductor, closer to the surface
B	Thermal effects on the surface of the conductor increase the impedance
C	Thermal effects on the surface of the conductor decrease the impedance
D	As frequency increases, RF current flows in a thinner layer of the conductor, closer to the surface

25. - E6A01

In what application is gallium arsenide used as a semiconductor material?

Select	Answer
A	In microwave circuits
B	In high-current rectifier circuits
C	In very low-frequency RF circuits
D	In high-power audio circuits

26. - E6B03

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

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

27. - E6C10

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

Select	Answer
A	3
B	1
C	2
D	4

28. - E6D10

What is a primary advantage of using a toroidal core instead of a solenoidal core in an inductor?

Select	Answer
A	Toroidal cores confine most of the magnetic field within the core material
B	Toroidal cores make it easier to couple the magnetic energy into other components
C	Toroidal cores exhibit greater hysteresis
D	Toroidal cores have lower Q characteristics

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	Shorter circuit-board traces
D	Components have less parasitic inductance and capacitance

30. - E6F11

What is the approximate open-circuit voltage produced by a fully illuminated silicon photovoltaic cell?

Select	Answer
A	0.1 V
B	12 V
C	1.5 V
D	0.5 V

31. - E7A11

What type of logic defines "1" as a high voltage?

Select	Answer
A	Negative logic
B	Reverse Logic
C	Positive Logic
D	Assertive Logic

32. - E7B05

What can be done to prevent unwanted oscillations in an RF power amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	Tune the stage for maximum SWR
B	Use a phase inverter in the output filter
C	Tune both the input and output for maximum power
D	Install parasitic suppressors and/or neutralize the stage

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

34. - E7D05

Which of the following types of linear voltage regulator places a constant load on the unregulated voltage source?

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

35. - E7E06

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

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

36. - E7F05

How frequently must an analog signal be sampled by an analog-to-digital converter so that the signal can be accurately reproduced?

Select	Answer
A	At least twice the rate of the highest frequency component of the signal
B	At the same rate as the highest frequency component of the signal
C	At four times the rate of the highest frequency component of the signal
D	At least half the rate of the highest frequency component of the signal

37. - E7G06

What is the gain-bandwidth of an operational amplifier?

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

38. - E7H04

How is positive feedback supplied in a Colpitts oscillator?

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

39. - E8A08

Why would a direct or flash conversion analog-to-digital converter be useful for a software defined radio?

Select	Answer
A	Very low power consumption decreases frequency drift
B	All these choices are correct
C	Very high speed allows digitizing high frequencies
D	Immunity to out-of-sequence coding reduces spurious responses

40. - E8B07

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing is a technique used for which type of amateur communication?

Select	Answer
A	OFDM signals are not allowed on amateur bands
B	EME
C	Extremely low-power contacts
D	High-speed digital modes

41. - E8C01

How is Forward Error Correction implemented?

Select	Answer
A	By varying the frequency shift of the transmitted signal according to a predefined algorithm
B	By the receiving station repeating each block of three data characters
C	By transmitting a special algorithm to the receiving station along with the data characters
D	By transmitting extra data that may be used to detect and correct transmission errors

42. - E8D04

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

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

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	3.85 dB
B	6.0 dB
C	8.15 dB
D	2.79 dB

44. - E9B05

What type of antenna pattern is shown in Figure E9-2?

Select	Answer
A	Elevation
B	Radiation resistance
C	Polarization
D	Azimuth

45. - E9C13

How does the radiation pattern of a horizontally polarized 3-element beam antenna vary with increasing height above ground?

Select	Answer
A	The horizontal beamwidth increases
B	The horizontal beamwidth decreases
C	The takeoff angle of the lowest elevation lobe increases
D	The takeoff angle of the lowest elevation lobe decreases

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

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 stub match
C	The gamma match
D	The delta match

48. - E9F07

How does ladder line compare to small-diameter coaxial cable such as RG-58 at 50 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	Higher SWR
B	Lower loss
C	Smaller reflection coefficient
D	Lower velocity factor

49. - E9G04

What are the two families of circles and arcs that make up a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Reactance and voltage
B	Resistance and reactance
C	Resistance and voltage
D	Voltage and impedance

50. - E9H06

What is the triangulation method of direction finding?

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

Figure E6-3

Figure E9-2