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

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1. - E1A01

When using a transceiver that displays the carrier frequency of phone signals, which of the following displayed frequencies represents the highest frequency at which a properly adjusted USB emission will be totally within the band?

Select	Answer
A	The exact upper band edge
B	3 kHz below the upper band edge
C	1 kHz below the upper band edge
D	300 Hz below the upper band edge

2. - E1B07

What is the highest modulation index permitted at the highest modulation frequency for angle modulation below 29.0 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	1.0
B	3.0
C	2.0
D	0.5

3. - E1C05

When may an automatically controlled station originate third party communications?

Select	Answer
A	When agreed upon by the sending or receiving station
B	Never
C	When approved by the National Telecommunication and Information Administration
D	Only when transmitting RTTY or data emissions

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 prospective VE obtains accreditation from the FCC
D	The amateur operator applying must pass a VE examination administered by the FCC Enforcement Bureau

6. - E1F09

Which of the following conditions apply when transmitting spread spectrum emission?

Select	Answer
A	A station transmitting SS emission must not cause harmful interference to other stations employing other authorized emissions
B	All of these choices are correct
C	The transmission must not be used to obscure the meaning of any communication
D	The transmitting station must be in an area regulated by the FCC or in a country that permits SS emissions

7. - E2A10

Why may the received signal from an amateur satellite exhibit a rapidly repeating fading effect?

Select	Answer
A	Because the satellite is spinning
B	Because of the satellite's low orbital altitude
C	Because of ionospheric absorption
D	Because of the Doppler Effect

8. - E2B04

What is blanking in a video signal?

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

9. - E2C02

Which of the following best describes the term self-spotting in regards to HF contest operating?

Select	Answer
A	The generally prohibited practice of posting one's own call sign and frequency on a spotting network
B	The acceptable practice of manually posting the call signs of stations on a spotting network
C	An automatic method for rapidly zero beating or tuning to a station's frequency before calling that station
D	A manual technique for rapidly zero beating or tuning to a station's frequency before calling that station

10. - E2D12

How does JT65 improve EME communications?

Select	Answer
A	It can decode signals many dB below the noise floor using FEC
B	It supplies signals to guide the antenna to track the Moon
C	It controls the receiver to track Doppler shift
D	All of these choices are correct

11. - E2E13

Which of the following is a possible reason that attempts to initiate contact with a digital station on a clear frequency are unsuccessful?

Select	Answer
A	The protocol version you are using is not the supported by the digital station
B	All of these choices are correct
C	Another station you are unable to hear is using the frequency
D	Your transmit frequency is incorrect

12. - E3A07

Atmospheric ducts capable of propagating microwave signals often form over what geographic feature?

Select	Answer
A	Forests
B	Mountain ranges
C	Urban areas
D	Bodies of water

13. - E3B06

Which of the following amateur bands most frequently provides long-path propagation?

Select	Answer
A	20 meters
B	10 meters
C	6 meters
D	80 meters

14. - E3C02

What is indicated by a rising A or K index?

Select	Answer
A	Decreasing disruption of the geomagnetic field
B	An increase in the critical frequency
C	Increasing disruption of the geomagnetic field
D	Higher levels of solar UV radiation

15. - E4A07

Which of the following is an advantage of using an antenna analyzer compared to an SWR bridge to measure antenna SWR?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	Antenna analyzers do not need an external RF source
C	Antenna analyzers display a time-varying representation of the modulation envelope
D	Antenna analyzers automatically tune your antenna for resonance

16. - E4B08

Which of the following is a characteristic of a good DC voltmeter?

Select	Answer
A	High reluctance input
B	Low reluctance input
C	Low impedance input
D	High impedance input

17. - E4C15

What is usually the primary source of noise that is heard from an HF receiver with an antenna connected?

Select	Answer
A	Atmospheric noise
B	Induction motor noise
C	Receiver front-end noise
D	Detector noise

18. - E4D10

What does a third-order intercept level of 40 dBm mean with respect to receiver performance?

Select	Answer
A	A pair of 40 dBm signals will theoretically generate a third-order intermodulation product with the same level as the input signals
B	A pair of 1 mW input signals will produce a third-order intermodulation product which is 40 dB stronger than the input signal
C	Signals less than 40 dBm will not generate audible third-order intermodulation products
D	The receiver can tolerate signals up to 40 dB above the noise floor without producing third-order intermodulation products

19. - E4E11

Which is the most likely cause if you are hearing combinations of local AM broadcast signals within one or more of the MF or HF ham bands?

Select	Answer
A	Nearby corroded metal joints are mixing and re-radiating the broadcast signals
B	You are receiving sky wave signals from a distant station
C	Your station receiver IF amplifier stage is defective
D	The broadcast station is transmitting an over-modulated signal

20. - E5A15

Which of the following can increase Q for inductors and capacitors?

Select	Answer
A	Higher self-resonant frequency
B	Lower self-resonant frequency
C	Lower reactance
D	Lower losses

21. - E5B03

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

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

22. - E5C10

When using rectangular coordinates to graph the impedance of a circuit, what does the vertical axis represent?

Select	Answer
A	The sum of the reactive and resistive components
B	Resistive component
C	The difference between the resistive and reactive components
D	Reactive component

23. - E5D08

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

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

24. - E6A14

How does DC input impedance at the gate of a field-effect transistor compare with the DC input impedance of a bipolar transistor?

Select	Answer
A	They are both low impedance
B	They are both high impedance
C	An FET has high input impedance; a bipolar transistor has low input impedance
D	An FET has low input impedance; a bipolar transistor has high input impedance

25. - E6B06

Which of the following is a common use of a hot-carrier diode?

Select	Answer
A	As balanced mixers in FM generation
B	As a VHF/UHF mixer or detector
C	As a constant voltage reference in a power supply
D	As a variable capacitance in an automatic frequency control circuit

26. - E6C09

What is a Programmable Logic Device (PLD)?

Select	Answer
A	Programmable equipment used for testing digital logic integrated circuits
B	An algorithm for simulating logic functions during circuit design
C	A device to control industrial equipment
D	A programmable collection of logic gates and circuits in a single integrated circuit

27. - E6D03

Which of the following is an aspect of the piezoelectric effect?

Select	Answer
A	Generation of electrical energy in the presence of light
B	Mechanical deformation of material by the application of a magnetic field
C	Mechanical deformation of material by the application of a voltage
D	Increased conductivity in the presence of light

28. - E6E05

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

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

29. - E6F03

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

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

30. - E7A04

How many flip-flops are required to divide a signal frequency by 4?

Select	Answer
A	1
B	4
C	2
D	8

31. - E7B08

How can an RF power amplifier be neutralized?

Select	Answer
A	By feeding a 180-degree out-of-phase portion of the output back to the input
B	By reducing the driving power
C	By increasing the driving power
D	By feeding an in-phase component of the output back to the input

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 filter with narrow bandwidth and steep skirts made using quartz crystals
C	A filter with wide bandwidth and shallow skirts made using quartz crystals
D	A power supply filter made with interlaced quartz crystals

33. - E7D05

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

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

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. - E7F01

What is meant by direct digital conversion as applied to software defined radios?

Select	Answer
A	Software is converted from source code to object code during operation of the receiver
B	Incoming RF is converted to a control voltage for a voltage controlled oscillator
C	Incoming RF is digitized by an analog-to-digital converter without being mixed with a local oscillator signal
D	A switching mixer is used to generate I and Q signals directly from the RF input

36. - E7G03

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

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

37. - E7H11

What are the major spectral impurity components of direct digital synthesizers?

Select	Answer
A	Digital conversion noise
B	Spurious signals at discrete frequencies
C	Nyquist limit noise
D	Broadband noise

38. - E8A09

How many levels can an analog-to-digital converter with 8 bit resolution encode?

Select	Answer
A	256 divided by the gain of the input amplifier
B	8
C	8 multiplied by the gain of the input amplifier
D	256

39. - E8B03

What is the modulation index of an FM-phone signal having a maximum frequency deviation of 3000 Hz either side of the carrier frequency when the modulating frequency is 1000 Hz?

Select	Answer
A	3000
B	1000
C	3
D	0.3

40. - E8C08

How does ARQ accomplish error correction?

Select	Answer
A	Special polynomial codes provide automatic correction
B	Special binary codes provide automatic correction
C	If errors are detected, redundant data is substituted
D	If errors are detected, a retransmission is requested

41. - E8D10

What are some of the differences between the Baudot digital code and ASCII?

Select	Answer
A	Baudot uses 4 data bits per character, ASCII uses 7 or 8; Baudot uses 1 character as a letters/figures shift code, ASCII has no letters/figures code
B	Baudot uses 6 data bits per character, ASCII uses 7 or 8; Baudot has no letters/figures shift code, ASCII uses 2 letters/figures shift codes
C	Baudot uses 7 data bits per character, ASCII uses 8; Baudot has no letters/figures shift code, ASCII uses 2 letters/figures shift codes
D	Baudot uses 5 data bits per character, ASCII uses 7 or 8; Baudot uses 2 characters as letters/figures shift codes, ASCII has no letters/figures shift code

42. - E9A08

What is meant by antenna bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	Antenna length divided by the number of elements
B	The frequency range over which an antenna satisfies a performance requirement
C	The angle formed between two imaginary lines drawn through the element ends
D	The angle between the half-power radiation points

43. - E9B01

In the antenna radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-1, what is the 3 dB beam-width?

Select	Answer
A	25 degrees
B	30 degrees
C	50 degrees
D	75 degrees

44. - E9C01

What is the radiation pattern of two 1/4-wavelength vertical antennas spaced 1/2-wavelength apart and fed 180 degrees out of phase?

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

45. - E9D08

What happens as the Q of an antenna increases?

Select	Answer
A	SWR bandwidth decreases
B	More common-mode current is present on the feed line
C	Gain is reduced
D	SWR bandwidth increases

46. - E9E09

Which of these matching systems is an effective method of connecting a 50 ohm coaxial cable feed line to a grounded tower so it can be used as a vertical antenna?

Select	Answer
A	Double-bazooka match
B	All of these choices are correct
C	Gamma match
D	Hairpin match

47. - E9F11

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

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

48. - E9G07

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

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

49. - E9H07

Why is it advisable to use an RF attenuator on a receiver being used for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	It reduces loss of received signals caused by antenna pattern nulls, thereby increasing sensitivity
B	It compensates for the effects of an isotropic antenna, thereby improving directivity
C	It narrows the bandwidth of the received signal to improve signal to noise ratio
D	It prevents receiver overload which could make it difficult to determine peaks or nulls

50. - E0A03

Which of the following would be a practical way to estimate whether the RF fields produced by an amateur radio station are within permissible MPE limits?

Select	Answer
A	Use an antenna modeling program to calculate field strength at accessible locations
B	All of the choices are correct
C	Use a hand calculator plus Smith-chart equations to calculate the fields
D	Use a calibrated antenna analyzer

Figure E9-1

Figure E9-3