US Amateur Radio - Amateur Extra (Element 4, 2016-2020) Practice Test

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1. - E1A12

With your transceiver displaying the carrier frequency of CW signals, you hear a DX station's CQ on 3.500 MHz. Is it legal to return the call using CW on the same frequency?

Select	Answer
A	No, one of the sidebands of the CW signal will be out of the band
B	No, U.S. stations are not permitted to use CW emissions below 3.525 MHz
C	Yes, the displayed frequency is within the 80 meter CW band segment
D	Yes, the DX station initiated the contact

2. - E1B06

Which of the following additional rules apply if you are installing an amateur station antenna at a site at or near a public use airport?

Select	Answer
A	You may have to notify the Federal Aviation Administration and register it with the FCC as required by Part 17 of FCC rules
B	No special rules apply if your antenna structure will be less than 300 feet in height
C	You must obtain a construction permit from the airport zoning authority
D	You must file an Environmental Impact Statement with the EPA before construction begins

3. - E1C11

Which of the following operating arrangements allows an FCC-licensed U.S. citizen to operate in many European countries, and alien amateurs from many European countries to operate in the U.S.?

Select	Answer
A	IARP agreement
B	All of these choices are correct
C	CEPT agreement
D	ITU reciprocal license

4. - E1D06

Which of the following is a requirement of a space station?

Select	Answer
A	The space station must be capable of changing its orbit whenever such a change is ordered by NASA
B	The space station must cease all transmissions after 5 years
C	All of these choices are correct
D	The space station must be capable of terminating transmissions by telecommand when directed by the FCC

5. - E1E03

What is a Volunteer Examiner Coordinator?

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

6. - E1F12

Who may be the control operator of an auxiliary station?

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

7. - E2A12

What is one way to predict the location of a satellite at a given time?

Select	Answer
A	By means of the Doppler data for the specified satellite
B	By subtracting the mean anomaly from the orbital inclination
C	By adding the mean anomaly to the orbital inclination
D	By calculations using the Keplerian elements for the specified satellite

8. - E2B09

What hardware, other than a receiver with SSB capability and a suitable computer, is needed to decode SSTV using Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM)?

Select	Answer
A	No other hardware is needed
B	A special IF converter
C	A special front end limiter
D	A special notch filter to remove synchronization pulses

9. - E2C11

How should you generally identify your station when attempting to contact a DX station during a contest or in a pileup?

Select	Answer
A	Send your full call sign once or twice
B	Send only the last two letters of your call sign until you make contact
C	Send your full call sign and grid square
D	Send the call sign of the DX station three times, the words "this is", then your call sign three times

10. - 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

11. - E2E03

How is the timing of JT65 contacts organized?

Select	Answer
A	By exchanging ACK/NAK packets
B	It depends on the lunar phase
C	Alternating transmissions at 1 minute intervals
D	Stations take turns on alternate days

12. - E3A14

From the contiguous 48 states, in which approximate direction should an antenna be pointed to take maximum advantage of aurora propagation?

Select	Answer
A	South
B	North
C	West
D	East

13. - E3B14

What happens to linearly polarized radio waves that split into ordinary and extraordinary waves in the ionosphere?

Select	Answer
A	They become elliptically polarized
B	They are bent toward the magnetic poles
C	Their polarization is randomly modified
D	They become phase-locked

14. - E3C07

Which of the following descriptors indicates the greatest solar flare intensity?

Select	Answer
A	Class A
B	Class X
C	Class M
D	Class B

15. - E4A12

Which of the following procedures is an important precaution to follow when connecting a spectrum analyzer to a transmitter output?

Select	Answer
A	Use high quality double shielded coaxial cables to reduce signal losses
B	Attenuate the transmitter output going to the spectrum analyzer
C	Match the antenna to the load
D	All of these choices are correct

16. - E4B14

What happens if a dip meter is too tightly coupled to a tuned circuit being checked?

Select	Answer
A	Harmonics are generated
B	Intermodulation distortion occurs
C	Cross modulation occurs
D	A less accurate reading results

17. - E4C04

How is the noise figure of a receiver defined?

Select	Answer
A	The ratio in dB of the noise generated by the receiver to the theoretical minimum noise
B	The ratio of the noise bandwidth in Hertz to the theoretical bandwidth of a resistive network
C	The ratio of atmospheric noise to phase noise
D	The ratio of thermal noise to atmospheric noise

18. - E4D13

Which of the following can cause receiver desensitization?

Select	Answer
A	Strong adjacent channel signals
B	Squelch gain misadjusted
C	Audio gain adjusted too low
D	Audio bias adjusted too high

19. - E4E16

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

20. - E5A08

What is the phase relationship between the current through and the voltage across a series resonant circuit at resonance?

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

21. - E5B13

What letter is commonly used to represent susceptance?

Select	Answer
A	X
B	G
C	Y
D	B

22. - E5C12

If you plot the impedance of a circuit using the rectangular coordinate system and find the impedance point falls on the right side of the graph on the horizontal axis, what do you know about the circuit?

Select	Answer
A	It has to be a direct current circuit
B	It contains resistance and inductive reactance
C	It is equivalent to a pure resistance
D	It contains resistance and capacitive reactance

23. - E5D03

What is microstrip?

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

24. - E6A17

What are the names of the three terminals of a field-effect transistor?

Select	Answer
A	Emitter, base, collector
B	Gate 1, gate 2, drain
C	Emitter, base 1, base 2
D	Gate, drain, source

25. - E6B13

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

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

26. - E6C04

What is the primary advantage of tri-state logic?

Select	Answer
A	Low power consumption
B	Ability to connect many device outputs to a common bus
C	More efficient arithmetic operations
D	High speed operation

27. - E6D14

Which type of slug material decreases inductance when inserted into a coil?

Select	Answer
A	Powdered-iron
B	Brass
C	Ferrite
D	Ceramic

28. - E6E05

Which of the following noise figure values is typical of a low-noise UHF preamplifier?

Select	Answer
A	-10 dB
B	44 dBm
C	-20 dBm
D	2 dB

29. - E6F03

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

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

30. - E7A08

What logical operation does an OR gate perform?

Select	Answer
A	It produces logic "1" at its output if all inputs are logic "0"
B	It only produces logic "0" at its output when all inputs are logic "1"
C	It produces logic "0" at its output if all inputs are logic "1"
D	It produces logic "1" at its output if any or all inputs are logic "1"

31. - E7B04

Where on the load line of a Class A common emitter amplifier would bias normally be set?

Select	Answer
A	At a point where the load line intersects the zero bias current curve
B	At a point where the bias resistor equals the load resistor
C	Where the load line intersects the voltage axis
D	Approximately half-way between saturation and cutoff

32. - E7C15

What is a crystal lattice filter?

Select	Answer
A	An audio filter made with four quartz crystals that resonate at 1kHz intervals
B	A power supply filter made with interlaced quartz crystals
C	A filter with narrow bandwidth and steep skirts made using quartz crystals
D	A filter with wide bandwidth and shallow skirts made using quartz crystals

33. - E7D15

What is the purpose of a "step-start" circuit in a high voltage power supply?

Select	Answer
A	To provide a dual-voltage output for reduced power applications
B	To allow for remote control of the power supply
C	To compensate for variations of the incoming line voltage
D	To allow the filter capacitors to charge gradually

34. - E7E08

What are the principal frequencies that appear at the output of a mixer circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Two and four times the original frequency
B	The sum, difference and square root of the input frequencies
C	The two input frequencies along with their sum and difference frequencies
D	1.414 and 0.707 times the input frequency

35. - E7F11

What sets the minimum detectable signal level for an SDR in the absence of atmospheric or thermal noise?

Select	Answer
A	Reference voltage level and sample width in bits
B	Data storage transfer rate
C	Sample clock phase noise
D	Missing codes and jitter

36. - E7G12

What is an integrated circuit operational amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	A high-gain, direct-coupled differential amplifier with very high input impedance and very low output impedance
B	A digital audio amplifier whose characteristics are determined by components external to the amplifier
C	An amplifier used to increase the average output of frequency modulated amateur signals to the legal limit
D	A RF amplifier used in the UHF and microwave regions

37. - E7H12

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

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

38. - E8A07

What determines the PEP-to-average power ratio of a single-sideband phone signal?

Select	Answer
A	The characteristics of the modulating signal
B	The degree of carrier suppression
C	The amplifier gain
D	The frequency of the modulating signal

39. - E8B08

What describes Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing?

Select	Answer
A	A digital modulation technique using subcarriers at frequencies chosen to avoid intersymbol interference
B	A digital mode for narrow band, slow speed transmissions
C	A frequency modulation technique which uses non-harmonically related frequencies
D	A bandwidth compression technique using Fourier transforms

40. - E8C02

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

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

41. - E8D09

What is considered a good minimum IMD level for an idling PSK signal?

Select	Answer
A	-30 dB
B	+10 dB
C	-20 dB
D	+15 dB

42. - E9A18

What term describes station output, taking into account all gains and losses?

Select	Answer
A	Effective radiated power
B	Power factor
C	Apparent power
D	Half-power bandwidth

43. - E9B09

What type of computer program technique is commonly used for modeling antennas?

Select	Answer
A	Mutual impedance analysis
B	Calculus differentiation with respect to physical properties
C	Graphical analysis
D	Method of Moments

44. - E9C03

What is the radiation pattern of two 1/4 wavelength vertical antennas spaced a 1/2 wavelength apart and fed in phase?

Select	Answer
A	Omni-directional
B	A Figure-8 broadside to the axis of the array
C	Cardioid
D	A Figure-8 end-fire along the axis of the array

45. - 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	At a voltage node
C	Near the center of the vertical radiator
D	As close to the transmitter as possible

46. - E9E08

Which of the following measurements is characteristic of a mismatched transmission line?

Select	Answer
A	A reflection coefficient greater than 1
B	A dielectric constant greater than 1
C	An SWR less than 1:1
D	An SWR greater than 1:1

47. - E9F07

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

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

48. - E9G10

What do the arcs on a Smith chart represent?

Select	Answer
A	Points with constant reactance
B	Points with constant resistance
C	SWR
D	Frequency

49. - E9H04

What is an advantage of using a shielded loop antenna for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	It eliminates tracking errors caused by strong out-of-band signals
B	It allows stations to communicate without giving away their position
C	It automatically cancels ignition noise in mobile installations
D	It is electro statically balanced against ground, giving better nulls

50. - E0A10

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

Select	Answer
A	Polyethylene
B	Polychlorinated Biphenyls
C	Polytetrafluroethylene
D	Polymorphic silicon