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

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1. - E1A09

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

Select	Answer
A	Notify the nearest FCC Field Engineer's office
B	Notify the originating station that the communication does not comply with FCC rules
C	Discontinue forwarding the communication as soon as you become aware of it
D	Discontinue forwarding all messages

2. - E1B10

What frequencies are authorized to an amateur station operating under RACES rules?

Select	Answer
A	Specific local government channels
B	All amateur service frequencies authorized to the control operator
C	Specific segments in the amateur service MF, HF, VHF and UHF bands
D	Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS) channels

3. - E1C13

Which of the following is required in order to operate in accordance with CEPT rules in foreign countries where permitted?

Select	Answer
A	You must append "/CEPT" to your call sign
B	You must bring a copy of FCC Public Notice DA 11-221
C	The U.S. embassy must approve of your operation
D	You must identify in the official language of the country in which you are operating

4. - E1D11

Which amateur stations are eligible to operate as Earth stations?

Select	Answer
A	Any amateur station, subject to the privileges of the class of operator license held by the control operator
B	Only those of Amateur Extra Class operators
C	Any amateur station whose licensee has filed a pre-space notification with the FCC's International Bureau
D	Only those of General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators

5. - E1E07

What should a VE do if a candidate fails to comply with the examiner's instructions during an amateur operator license examination?

Select	Answer
A	Immediately terminate everyone's examination and close the session
B	Allow the candidate to complete the examination, but invalidate the results
C	Immediately terminate the candidate's examination
D	Warn the candidate that continued failure to comply will result in termination of the examination

6. - E1F08

Which of the following types of amateur station communications are prohibited?

Select	Answer
A	Communications transmitted for hire or material compensation, except as otherwise provided in the rules
B	Communications that have a religious content
C	Communications that have a political content, except as allowed by the Fairness Doctrine
D	Communications in a language other than English

7. - E2A02

What is the direction of a descending pass for an amateur satellite?

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

8. - E2B04

What is blanking in a video signal?

Select	Answer
A	Turning off the scanning beam at the conclusion of a transmission
B	Synchronization of the horizontal and vertical sync pulses
C	Turning off the scanning beam while it is traveling from right to left or from bottom to top
D	Transmitting a black and white test pattern

9. - E2C04

What type of transmission is most often used for a ham radio mesh network?

Select	Answer
A	Multiple Frequency Shift Keying in the 10 GHz band
B	Spread spectrum in the 2.4 GHz band
C	Frequency division multiplex in the 24 GHz band
D	Store and forward on the 440 MHz band

10. - E2D06

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

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

11. - E2E04

What is indicated when one of the ellipses in an FSK crossed-ellipse display suddenly disappears?

Select	Answer
A	The receiver has drifted 5 kHz from the desired receive frequency
B	One of the signal filters is saturated
C	The mark and space signal have been inverted
D	Selective fading has occurred

12. - 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 F2 layer
C	The D layer
D	The F1 layer

13. - E3B12

What is the primary characteristic of chordal hop propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Propagation away from the great circle bearing between stations
B	Signals reflected back toward the transmitting station
C	Successive ionospheric reflections without an intermediate reflection from the ground
D	Propagation across the geomagnetic equator

14. - E3C06

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

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

15. - E4A03

Which of the following test instrument is used to display spurious signals and/or intermodulation distortion products in an SSB transmitter?

Select	Answer
A	A spectrum analyzer
B	A time-domain reflectometer
C	A wattmeter
D	A logic analyzer

16. - E4B06

How much power is being absorbed by the load when a directional power meter connected between a transmitter and a terminating load reads 100 watts forward power and 25 watts reflected power?

Select	Answer
A	125 watts
B	75 watts
C	100 watts
D	25 watts

17. - E4C05

What does a value of -174 dBm/Hz represent with regard to the noise floor of a receiver?

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

18. - E4D03

How can intermodulation interference between two repeaters occur?

Select	Answer
A	When the repeaters are in close proximity and the signals cause feedback in the final amplifier of one or both transmitters
B	When the signals from the transmitters are reflected out of phase from airplanes passing overhead
C	When the repeaters are in close proximity and the signals mix in the final amplifier of one or both transmitters
D	When the signals from the transmitters are reflected in phase from airplanes passing overhead

19. - E4E16

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

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

20. - E5A17

What is the result of increasing the Q of an impedance-matching circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Matching bandwidth is increased
B	It has no effect on impedance matching
C	Matching range is increased
D	Matching bandwidth is decreased

21. - E5B03

What happens to the phase angle of a reactance when it is converted to a susceptance?

Select	Answer
A	It is unchanged
B	The sign is reversed
C	The susceptance phase angle is the inverse of the reactance phase angle
D	It is shifted by 90 degrees

22. - E5C07

What is a vector?

Select	Answer
A	The inverse of the sine function
B	A quantity with both magnitude and an angular component
C	The inverse of the tangent function
D	The value of a quantity that changes over time

23. - E5D08

What type of energy is stored in an electromagnetic or electrostatic field?

Select	Answer
A	Potential energy
B	Kinetic energy
C	Thermodynamic energy
D	Electromechanical energy

24. - E6A03

Why does a PN-junction diode not conduct current when reverse biased?

Select	Answer
A	Only N-type semiconductor material can conduct current
B	Holes in P-type material and electrons in the N-type material are separated by the applied voltage, widening the depletion region
C	Excess holes in P-type material combine with the electrons in N-type material, converting the entire diode into an insulator
D	Only P-type semiconductor material can conduct current

25. - E6B11

What is used to control the attenuation of RF signals by a PIN diode?

Select	Answer
A	Forward DC bias current
B	A sub-harmonic pump signal
C	Capacitance of an RF coupling capacitor
D	Reverse voltage larger than the RF signal

26. - E6C13

Which of the following is an advantage of BiCMOS logic?

Select	Answer
A	It is totally immune to electrostatic damage
B	It has the high input impedance of CMOS and the low output impedance of bipolar transistors
C	Its simplicity results in much less expensive devices than standard CMOS
D	All of these choices are correct

27. - E6D07

What is the usable frequency range of inductors that use toroidal cores, assuming a correct selection of core material for the frequency being used?

Select	Answer
A	From a few kHz to no more than 30 MHz
B	From about 100 kHz to at least 1000 GHz
C	From approximately 10 Hz to no more than 3000 kHz
D	From less than 20 Hz to approximately 300 MHz

28. - E6E01

Which of the following is true of a charge-coupled device (CCD)?

Select	Answer
A	It samples an analog signal and passes it in stages from the input to the output
B	It is used in a battery charger circuit
C	It is a CMOS analog-to-digital converter
D	Its phase shift changes rapidly with frequency

29. - E6F05

Which describes an optical shaft encoder?

Select	Answer
A	A digital encryption device often used to encrypt spacecraft control signals
B	A device which detects rotation of a control by interrupting a light source with a patterned wheel
C	A device for generating RTTY signals by means of a rotating light source
D	A device which measures the strength of a beam of light using analog to digital conversion

30. - E7A05

Which of the following is a circuit that continuously alternates between two states without an external clock?

Select	Answer
A	Monostable multivibrator
B	Astable multivibrator
C	J-K flip-flop
D	T flip-flop

31. - E7B12

What type of amplifier circuit is shown in Figure E7-1?

Select	Answer
A	Common base
B	Emitter follower
C	Common emitter
D	Common collector

32. - E7C03

What advantage does a Pi-L-network have over a regular Pi-network for impedance matching between the final amplifier of a vacuum-tube transmitter and an antenna?

Select	Answer
A	Higher efficiency
B	Greater harmonic suppression
C	Greater transformation range
D	Lower losses

33. - E7D10

What is the primary reason that a high-frequency switching type high voltage power supply can be both less expensive and lighter in weight than a conventional power supply?

Select	Answer
A	The inverter design does not require any output filtering
B	It uses a large power factor compensation capacitor to create free power from the unused portion of the AC cycle
C	It uses a diode bridge rectifier for increased output
D	The high frequency inverter design uses much smaller transformers and filter components for an equivalent power output

34. - E7E03

How does an analog phase modulator function?

Select	Answer
A	By varying the tuning of an amplifier tank circuit to produce PM signals
B	By varying the tuning of a microphone preamplifier to produce PM signals
C	By varying the tuning of an amplifier tank circuit to produce AM signals
D	By varying the tuning of a microphone preamplifier to produce AM signals

35. - E7F02

What kind of digital signal processing audio filter is used to remove unwanted noise from a received SSB signal?

Select	Answer
A	A phase-inverting filter
B	A Hilbert-transform filter
C	A crystal-lattice filter
D	An adaptive filter

36. - E7G02

What is the effect of ringing in a filter?

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

37. - E7H04

How is positive feedback supplied in a Colpitts oscillator?

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

38. - E8A11

What type of information can be conveyed using digital waveforms?

Select	Answer
A	Human speech
B	All of these choices are correct
C	Video signals
D	Data

39. - E8B04

What is the modulation index of an FM-phone signal having a maximum carrier deviation of plus or minus 6 kHz when modulated with a 2 kHz modulating frequency?

Select	Answer
A	1/3
B	3
C	2000
D	6000

40. - E8C06

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

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

41. - E8D05

What is the most common method of reducing key clicks?

Select	Answer
A	Increase keying waveform rise and fall times
B	Reduce keying waveform rise and fall times
C	High-pass filters at the transmitter output
D	Low-pass filters at the transmitter output

42. - E9A13

How much gain does an antenna have compared to a 1/2-wavelength dipole when it has 12 dB gain over an isotropic antenna?

Select	Answer
A	12.5 dB
B	6.17 dB
C	9.85 dB
D	14.15 dB

43. - E9B05

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

Select	Answer
A	Radiation resistance
B	Elevation
C	Azimuth
D	Polarization

44. - E9C02

What is the radiation pattern of two 1/4 wavelength vertical antennas spaced 1/4 wavelength apart and fed 90 degrees out of phase?

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

45. - E9D11

Which of the following types of conductors would be best for minimizing losses in a station's RF ground system?

Select	Answer
A	A single 12 gauge or 10 gauge stainless steel wire
B	A wide flat copper strap
C	A resistive wire, such as spark plug wire
D	A cable with six or seven 18 gauge conductors in parallel

46. - 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 stub match
B	The omega match
C	The gamma match
D	The delta match

47. - E9F10

What impedance does a 1/8 wavelength transmission line present to a generator when the line is shorted at the far end?

Select	Answer
A	A capacitive reactance
B	The same as the input impedance to the final generator stage
C	The same as the characteristic impedance of the line
D	An inductive reactance

48. - E9G05

What type of chart is shown in Figure E9-3?

Select	Answer
A	Elevation angle radiation pattern chart
B	Smith chart
C	Free space radiation directivity chart
D	Azimuth angle radiation pattern chart

49. - E9H02

Which is generally true for low band (160 meter and 80 meter) receiving antennas?

Select	Answer
A	Atmospheric noise is so high that gain over a dipole is not important
B	Low loss coax transmission line is essential for good performance
C	They must be erected at least 1/2 wavelength above the ground to attain good directivity
D	All of these choices are correct

50. - E0A02

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

Select	Answer
A	Advise your neighbors of the results of your tests
B	Make sure signals from your station are less than the controlled MPE limits
C	Make sure signals from your station are less than the uncontrolled MPE limits
D	You need only evaluate exposure levels on your own property

Figure E7-1

Figure E9-2

Figure E9-3