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

Logging in (or registering) will help the system to select questions that you need to focus on.

1. - E1A13

Who must be in physical control of the station apparatus of an amateur station aboard any vessel or craft that is documented or registered in the United States?

Select	Answer
A	Any person holding an FCC issued amateur license or who is authorized for alien reciprocal operation
B	Only a person with an FCC Marine Radio
C	Any person named in an amateur station license grant or a person holding an unrestricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit
D	Only a person named in an amateur station license grant

2. - E1B05

What is the National Radio Quiet Zone?

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

3. - E1C03

How do the control operator responsibilities of a station under automatic control differ from one under local control?

Select	Answer
A	Under automatic control there is no control operator
B	Under local control a control operator is not required to be present at a control point
C	Under automatic control the control operator is not required to be present at the control point
D	Under local control there is no control operator

4. - E1D03

What is a telecommand station in the amateur satellite service?

Select	Answer
A	An amateur station located on the Earth's surface for communication with other Earth stations by means of Earth satellites
B	An amateur station that transmits telemetry consisting of measurements of upper atmosphere
C	An amateur station located more than 50 km above the Earth's surface
D	An amateur station that transmits communications to initiate, modify or terminate functions of a space station

5. - E1E05

What is the minimum passing score on amateur operator license examinations?

Select	Answer
A	Minimum passing score of 74%
B	Minimum passing score of 80%
C	Minimum passing score of 77%
D	Minimum passing score of 70%

6. - E1F07

When may an amateur station send a message to a business?

Select	Answer
A	When neither the amateur nor his or her employer has a pecuniary interest in the communications
B	When the control operator is employed by the FCC or another government agency
C	When the total money involved does not exceed $25
D	When transmitting international third-party communications

7. - E2A04

What is meant by the term mode as applied to an amateur radio satellite?

Select	Answer
A	The type of signals that can be relayed through the satellite
B	The satellite's orientation with respect to the Earth
C	The satellite's uplink and downlink frequency bands
D	Whether the satellite is in a polar or equatorial orbit

8. - E2B03

How is an interlaced scanning pattern generated in a fast-scan (NTSC) television system?

Select	Answer
A	By scanning each field from bottom to top
B	By scanning lines from left to right in one field and right to left in the next
C	By scanning odd numbered lines in one field and even numbered lines in the next
D	By scanning two fields simultaneously

9. - E2C09

What type of equipment is commonly used to implement a ham radio mesh network?

Select	Answer
A	A standard wireless router running custom software
B	An optical cable connection between the USB ports of 2 separate computers
C	A 2 meter VHF transceiver with a 1200 baud modem
D	A 440 MHz transceiver with a 9600 baud modem

10. - E2D02

Which of the following is a good technique for making meteor scatter contacts?

Select	Answer
A	Use of high speed CW or digital modes
B	15 second timed transmission sequences with stations alternating based on location
C	All of these choices are correct
D	Short transmission with rapidly repeated call signs and signal reports

11. - E2E11

What is the difference between direct FSK and audio FSK?

Select	Answer
A	Direct FSK uses a DC-coupled data connection
B	Direct FSK applies the data signal to the transmitter VFO
C	Audio FSK can be performed anywhere in the transmit chain
D	Audio FSK has a superior frequency response

12. - E3A03

When scheduling EME contacts, which of these conditions will generally result in the least path loss?

Select	Answer
A	When the Moon is full
B	When the MUF is above 30 MHz
C	When the Moon is at perigee
D	When the Moon is at apogee

13. - E3B09

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

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

14. - E3C14

Why does the radio-path horizon distance exceed the geometric horizon?

Select	Answer
A	Downward bending due to aurora refraction
B	E-region skip
C	D-region skip
D	Downward bending due to density variations in the atmosphere

15. - E4A08

Which of the following instrument would be best for measuring the SWR of a beam antenna?

Select	Answer
A	An antenna analyzer
B	An ohmmeter
C	A spectrum analyzer
D	A Q meter

16. - E4B03

If a frequency counter with a specified accuracy of +/- 1.0 ppm reads 146,520,000 Hz, what is the most the actual frequency being measured could differ from the reading?

Select	Answer
A	14.652 kHz
B	1.4652 MHz
C	146.52 Hz
D	165.2 Hz

17. - E4C10

Which of the following is a desirable amount of selectivity for an amateur RTTY HF receiver?

Select	Answer
A	100 Hz
B	2400 Hz
C	300 Hz
D	6000 Hz

18. - E4D14

Which of the following is a way to reduce the likelihood of receiver desensitization?

Select	Answer
A	Increase the receiver front end gain
B	Switch from fast AGC to slow AGC
C	Raise the receiver IF frequency
D	Decrease the RF bandwidth of the receiver

19. - E4E13

What might be the cause of a loud roaring or buzzing AC line interference that comes and goes at intervals?

Select	Answer
A	Arcing contacts in a thermostatically controlled device
B	A malfunctioning illuminated advertising display
C	All of these choices are correct
D	A defective doorbell or doorbell transformer inside a nearby residence

20. - E5A10

How is the Q of an RLC series resonant circuit calculated?

Select	Answer
A	Reactance of the inductance times the reactance of the capacitance
B	Resistance divided by the reactance of either the inductance or capacitance
C	Reactance of either the inductance or capacitance divided by the resistance
D	Reactance of either the inductance or capacitance times the resistance

21. - E5B05

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

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

22. - E5C02

How are impedances described in polar coordinates?

Select	Answer
A	By phase angle and amplitude
B	By real and imaginary parts
C	By X and R values
D	By Y and G values

23. - E5D17

How many watts are consumed in a circuit having a power factor of 0.6 if the input is 200VAC at 5 amperes?

Select	Answer
A	600 watts
B	1600 watts
C	1000 watts
D	200 watts

24. - E6A16

What are the majority charge carriers in N-type semiconductor material?

Select	Answer
A	Holes
B	Free neutrons
C	Free electrons
D	Free protons

25. - E6B10

In Figure E6-3, what is the schematic symbol for a light-emitting diode?

Select	Answer
A	6
B	7
C	5
D	1

26. - E6C13

Which of the following is an advantage of BiCMOS logic?

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

27. - E6D17

Why should core saturation of a conventional impedance matching transformer be avoided?

Select	Answer
A	RF susceptance would increase
B	Magnetic flux would increase with frequency
C	Harmonics and distortion could result
D	Temporary changes of the core permeability could result

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 a CMOS analog-to-digital converter
C	Its phase shift changes rapidly with frequency
D	It is used in a battery charger circuit

29. - E6F10

What is the most common type of photovoltaic cell used for electrical power generation?

Select	Answer
A	Copper oxide
B	Cadmium Sulfide
C	Silicon
D	Selenium

30. - E7A12

What type of logic defines "0" as a high voltage?

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

31. - E7B06

Which of the following amplifier types reduces or eliminates even order harmonics?

Select	Answer
A	Push-push
B	Push-pull
C	Class AB
D	Class C

32. - E7C04

How does an impedance-matching circuit transform a complex impedance to a resistive impedance?

Select	Answer
A	It introduces negative resistance to cancel the resistive part of impedance
B	Network resistances are substituted for load resistances and reactances are matched to the resistances
C	It introduces transconductance to cancel the reactive part of impedance
D	It cancels the reactive part of the impedance and changes the resistive part to a desired value

33. - E7D07

What is the purpose of C2 in the circuit shown in Figure E7-3?

Select	Answer
A	To self-resonate at the hum frequency
B	It bypasses hum around D1
C	To provide fixed DC bias for Q1
D	It is a brute force filter for the 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. - E7F12

What digital process is applied to I and Q signals in order to recover the baseband modulation information?

Select	Answer
A	Decimation
B	Quadrature mixing
C	Fast Fourier Transform
D	Signal conditioning

36. - E7G07

What magnitude of voltage gain can be expected from the circuit in Figure E7-4 when R1 is 10 ohms and RF is 470 ohms?

Select	Answer
A	94
B	0.21
C	47
D	24

37. - E7H02

Which describes a microphonic?

Select	Answer
A	Excess loading of the microphone by an oscillator
B	Changes in oscillator frequency due to mechanical vibration
C	An IC used for amplifying microphone signals
D	Distortion caused by RF pickup on the microphone cable

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

39. - E8B06

What is the deviation ratio of an FM-phone signal having a maximum frequency swing of plus or minus 7.5 kHz when the maximum modulation frequency is 3.5 kHz?

Select	Answer
A	0.214
B	0.47
C	47
D	2.14

40. - E8C07

What is the necessary bandwidth of a 4800-Hz frequency shift, 9600-baud ASCII FM transmission?

Select	Answer
A	9.6 kHz
B	5.76 kHz
C	4.8 kHz
D	15.36 kHz

41. - E8D02

What spread spectrum communications technique uses a high speed binary bit stream to shift the phase of an RF carrier?

Select	Answer
A	Binary phase-shift keying
B	Direct sequence
C	Phase compandored spread spectrum
D	Frequency hopping

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	8.15 dB
B	3.85 dB
C	6.0 dB
D	2.79 dB

43. - E9B13

What does the abbreviation NEC stand for when applied to antenna modeling programs?

Select	Answer
A	Next Element Comparison
B	Numerical Electromagnetic Code
C	Numeric Electrical Computation
D	National Electrical Code

44. - 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 decreases in the downhill direction
B	The main lobe takeoff angle increases in the downhill direction
C	The horizontal beam width increases in the uphill direction
D	The horizontal beam width decreases in the downhill direction

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

46. - E9E01

What system matches a higher impedance transmission line to a lower impedance antenna by connecting the line to the driven element in two places spaced a fraction of a wavelength each side of element center?

Select	Answer
A	The delta matching system
B	The stub matching system
C	The gamma matching system
D	The omega matching system

47. - E9F08

What is the term for the ratio of the actual speed at which a signal travels through a transmission line to the speed of light in a vacuum?

Select	Answer
A	Standing wave ratio
B	Surge impedance
C	Characteristic impedance
D	Velocity factor

48. - E9G07

On the Smith chart shown in Figure E9-3, what is the only straight line shown?

Select	Answer
A	The current axis
B	The voltage axis
C	The reactance axis
D	The resistance axis

49. - E9H05

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

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

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 uncontrolled MPE limits
C	Make sure signals from your station are less than the controlled MPE limits
D	You need only evaluate exposure levels on your own property

Figure E6-3

Figure E7-3

Figure E7-4

Figure E9-3