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

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1. - E1A06

Where must the carrier frequency of a CW signal be set to comply with FCC rules for 60 meter operation?

Select	Answer
A	At the center frequency of the channel
B	At the lowest frequency of the channel
C	At the highest frequency of the channel
D	On any frequency where the signal's sidebands are within the channel

2. - E1B10

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

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

3. - E1C07

What is meant by local control?

Select	Answer
A	Automatically manipulating local station controls
B	Controlling a station through a local auxiliary link
C	Direct manipulation of the transmitter by a control operator
D	Controlling a repeater using a portable handheld transceiver

4. - E1D09

Which UHF amateur service bands have frequencies available for a space station?

Select	Answer
A	33 cm and 13 cm
B	70 cm only
C	70 cm and 13 cm
D	70 cm and 33 cm

5. - E1E04

Which of the following best describes the Volunteer Examiner accreditation process?

Select	Answer
A	Each General, Advanced and Amateur Extra Class operator is automatically accredited as a VE when the license is granted
B	The procedure by which a VEC confirms that the VE applicant meets FCC requirements to serve as an examiner
C	The amateur operator applying must pass a VE examination administered by the FCC Enforcement Bureau
D	The prospective VE obtains accreditation from the FCC

6. - E1F12

Who may be the control operator of an auxiliary station?

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

7. - E2A13

What type of satellite appears to stay in one position in the sky?

Select	Answer
A	Geostationary
B	HEO
C	LEO
D	Geomagnetic

8. - E2B11

What is the function of the Vertical Interval Signaling (VIS) code sent as part of an SSTV transmission?

Select	Answer
A	To identify the call sign of the station transmitting
B	To lock the color burst oscillator in color SSTV images
C	To identify the SSTV mode being used
D	To provide vertical synchronization

9. - E2C12

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

10. - E2D07

What digital protocol is used by APRS?

Select	Answer
A	PACTOR
B	AX.25
C	802.11
D	AMTOR

11. - E2E09

Which of the following HF digital modes uses variable-length coding for bandwidth efficiency?

Select	Answer
A	MT63
B	PSK31
C	RTTY
D	PACTOR

12. - E3A06

Which of the following is required for microwave propagation via rain scatter?

Select	Answer
A	Rain droplets must be electrically charged
B	Rain droplets must be within the E layer
C	The rain must be within radio range of both stations
D	All of these choices are correct

13. - E3B09

At what time of year is Sporadic E propagation most likely to occur?

Select	Answer
A	Around the solstices, especially the summer solstice
B	Around the equinoxes, especially the fall equinox
C	Around the solstices, especially the winter solstice
D	Around the equinoxes, especially the spring equinox

14. - E3C07

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

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

15. - E4A10

Which of the following displays multiple digital signal states simultaneously?

Select	Answer
A	Bit error rate tester
B	Network analyzer
C	Logic analyzer
D	Modulation monitor

16. - E4B11

How should an antenna analyzer be connected when measuring antenna resonance and feed point impedance?

Select	Answer
A	Loosely couple the analyzer near the antenna base
B	Connect the antenna feed line directly to the analyzer's connector
C	Loosely couple the antenna and a dummy load to the analyzer
D	Connect the analyzer via a high-impedance transformer to the antenna

17. - E4C04

How is the noise figure of a receiver defined?

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

18. - E4D07

Which describes the most significant effect of an off-frequency signal when it is causing cross-modulation interference to a desired signal?

Select	Answer
A	A reduction in apparent signal strength
B	The desired signal can no longer be heard
C	A large increase in background noise
D	The off-frequency unwanted signal is heard in addition to the desired signal

19. - E4E10

What is a common characteristic of interference caused by a touch controlled electrical device?

Select	Answer
A	The interfering signal may drift slowly across the HF spectrum
B	The interfering signal sounds like AC hum on an AM receiver or a carrier modulated by 60 Hz hum on a SSB or CW receiver
C	The interfering signal can be several kHz in width and usually repeats at regular intervals across a HF band
D	All of these choices are correct

20. - E5A17

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

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

21. - E5B09

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

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

22. - 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	Venn diagram
C	Phasor diagram
D	Far field diagram

23. - 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	As frequency increases, RF current flows in a thinner layer of the conductor, closer to the surface
C	Thermal effects on the surface of the conductor decrease the impedance
D	Thermal effects on the surface of the conductor increase the impedance

24. - E6A01

In what application is gallium arsenide used as a semiconductor material in preference to germanium or silicon?

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

25. - E6B03

What special type of diode is capable of both amplification and oscillation?

Select	Answer
A	Zener
B	Tunnel
C	Point contact
D	Junction

26. - E6C10

In Figure E6-5, what is the schematic symbol for a NOR gate?

Select	Answer
A	1
B	3
C	2
D	4

27. - E6D13

What is the primary cause of inductor self-resonance?

Select	Answer
A	Inter-turn capacitance
B	Inductive kickback
C	Non-linear core hysteresis
D	The skin effect

28. - E6E06

What characteristics of the MMIC make it a popular choice for VHF through microwave circuits?

Select	Answer
A	Plate current that is controlled by a control grid
B	Controlled gain, low noise figure, and constant input and output impedance over the specified frequency range
C	Nearly infinite gain, very high input impedance, and very low output impedance
D	The ability to retrieve information from a single signal even in the presence of other strong signals

29. - E6F01

What is photoconductivity?

Select	Answer
A	The decreased conductivity of an illuminated semiconductor
B	The conversion of photon energy to electromotive energy
C	The increased conductivity of an illuminated semiconductor
D	The conversion of electromotive energy to photon energy

30. - E7A01

Which is a bi-stable circuit?

Select	Answer
A	An "OR" gate
B	A clock
C	A flip-flop
D	An "AND" gate

31. - E7B09

Which of the following describes how the loading and tuning capacitors are to be adjusted when tuning a vacuum tube RF power amplifier that employs a Pi-network output circuit?

Select	Answer
A	The tuning capacitor is adjusted for minimum plate current, and the loading capacitor is adjusted for maximum permissible plate current
B	The tuning capacitor is set to maximum capacitance and the loading capacitor is adjusted for minimum plate permissible current
C	The loading capacitor is set to maximum capacitance and the tuning capacitor is adjusted for minimum allowable plate current
D	The loading capacitor is adjusted to minimum plate current while alternately adjusting the tuning capacitor for maximum allowable plate current

32. - E7C11

Which of the following is the common name for a filter network which is equivalent to two L-networks connected back-to-back with the two inductors in series and the capacitors in shunt at the input and output?

Select	Answer
A	Omega
B	Pi
C	Pi-L
D	Cascode

33. - E7D09

What is the main reason to use a charge controller with a solar power system?

Select	Answer
A	Prevention of battery damage due to overcharge
B	Control of electrolyte levels during battery discharge
C	Matching of day and night charge rates
D	Prevention of battery undercharge

34. - E7E08

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

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

35. - E7F09

Why is an anti-aliasing digital filter required in a digital decimator?

Select	Answer
A	It peaks the response of the decimator, improving bandwidth
B	It notches out the sampling frequency to avoid sampling errors
C	It removes low frequency signal components to eliminate the need for DC restoration
D	It removes high-frequency signal components which would otherwise be reproduced as lower frequency components

36. - E7G01

What is the typical output impedance of an integrated circuit op-amp?

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

37. - E7H13

Which of the following is a technique for providing highly accurate and stable oscillators needed for microwave transmission and reception?

Select	Answer
A	Use a temperature-controlled high Q dielectric resonator
B	All of these choices are correct
C	Use a GPS signal reference
D	Use a rubidium stabilized reference oscillator

38. - E8A03

What type of wave does a Fourier analysis show to be made up of sine waves of a given fundamental frequency plus all of its harmonics?

Select	Answer
A	A cosine wave
B	A sawtooth wave
C	A sine wave
D	A square wave

39. - 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	1.67
B	60
C	0.167
D	0.6

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. - E8D12

What is the advantage of including a parity bit with an ASCII character stream?

Select	Answer
A	Foreign language characters can be sent
B	Some types of errors can be detected SUBELEMENT E9 - ANTENNAS AND TRANSMISSION LINES [8 Exam Questions - 8 Groups] E9A Basic Antenna parameters: radiation resistance, gain, beamwidth, efficiency, beamwidth; effective radiated power, polarization E9A01 (C) What describes an isotropic antenna? A. A grounded antenna used to measure earth conductivity B. A horizontally polarized antenna used to compare Yagi antennas C. A theoretical antenna used as a reference for antenna gain D. A spacecraft antenna used to direct signals toward the earth
C	The signal can overpower interfering signals
D	Faster transmission rate

42. - 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	2.79 dB
B	3.85 dB
C	6.0 dB
D	8.15 dB

43. - E9B15

What is the front-to-back ratio of the radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-2?

Select	Answer
A	3 dB
B	24 dB
C	15 dB
D	28 dB

44. - E9C06

What is the effect of a terminating resistor on a rhombic antenna?

Select	Answer
A	It changes the radiation pattern from horizontal to vertical polarization
B	It reflects the standing waves on the antenna elements back to the transmitter
C	It changes the radiation pattern from bidirectional to unidirectional
D	It decreases the ground loss

45. - E9D06

What happens to the bandwidth of an antenna as it is shortened through the use of loading coils?

Select	Answer
A	It becomes flat
B	It is decreased
C	It is increased
D	No change occurs

46. - E9E06

What is the equivalent lumped-constant network for a hairpin matching system of a 3-element Yagi?

Select	Answer
A	A shunt inductor
B	Pi-network
C	A series capacitor
D	Pi-L-network

47. - E9F14

What impedance does a 1/2 wavelength transmission line present to a generator when the line is shorted at the far end?

Select	Answer
A	The same as the output impedance of the generator
B	Very low impedance
C	The same as the characteristic impedance of the line
D	Very high impedance

48. - E9G06

On the Smith chart shown in Figure E9-3, what is the name for the large outer circle on which the reactance arcs terminate?

Select	Answer
A	Prime axis
B	Impedance axis
C	Polar axis
D	Reactance axis

49. - E9H05

What is the main drawback of a wire-loop antenna for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	It is non-rotatable
B	It is practical for use only on VHF bands
C	It has a bidirectional pattern
D	It receives equally well in all directions

50. - 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 at accessible locations
C	Each transmitter operating with a duty-cycle greater than 50 percent
D	Only the most powerful transmitter

Figure E6-5

Figure E9-2

Figure E9-3