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

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1. - E1A03

With your transceiver displaying the carrier frequency of phone signals, you hear a station calling CQ on 14.349 MHz USB. Is it legal to return the call using upper sideband on the same frequency?

Select	Answer
A	No, the sideband will extend beyond the band edge
B	Yes, because you were not the station calling CQ
C	No, U.S. stations are not permitted to use phone emissions above 14.340 MHz
D	Yes, because the displayed frequency is within the 20 meter band

2. - E1B08

What limitations may the FCC place on an amateur station if its signal causes interference to domestic broadcast reception, assuming that the receivers involved are of good engineering design?

Select	Answer
A	The amateur station must cease operation on all frequencies below 30 MHz
B	The amateur station must cease operation on all frequencies above 30 MHz
C	The amateur station must cease operation
D	The amateur station must avoid transmitting during certain hours on frequencies that cause the interference

3. - E1C10

What types of amateur stations may automatically retransmit the radio signals of other amateur stations?

Select	Answer
A	Only auxiliary, repeater or space stations
B	Only earth stations, repeater stations or model craft
C	Only beacon, repeater or space stations
D	Only auxiliary, beacon or space stations

4. - E1D11

Which amateur stations are eligible to operate as Earth stations?

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

5. - E1E01

What is the minimum number of qualified VEs required to administer an Element 4 amateur operator license examination?

Select	Answer
A	4
B	5
C	3
D	2

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	The transmitting station must be in an area regulated by the FCC or in a country that permits SS emissions
C	All of these choices are correct
D	The transmission must not be used to obscure the meaning of any communication

7. - E2A11

What type of antenna can be used to minimize the effects of spin modulation and Faraday rotation?

Select	Answer
A	An isotropic antenna
B	A log-periodic dipole array
C	A circularly polarized antenna
D	A linearly polarized antenna

8. - E2B02

How many horizontal lines make up a fast-scan (NTSC) television frame?

Select	Answer
A	60
B	30
C	525
D	1080

9. - E2C02

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

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

10. - E2D09

Which of these digital modes has the fastest data throughput under clear communication conditions?

Select	Answer
A	170 Hz shift, 45 baud RTTY
B	300 baud packet
C	PSK31
D	AMTOR

11. - E2E05

Which type of digital mode does not support keyboard-to-keyboard operation?

Select	Answer
A	PSK31
B	MFSK
C	RTTY
D	Winlink

12. - E3A07

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

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

13. - E3B10

What is the cause of gray-line propagation?

Select	Answer
A	At midday, the Sun super heats the ionosphere causing increased refraction of radio waves
B	At twilight and sunrise, D-layer absorption is low while E-layer and F-layer propagation remains high
C	At mid-afternoon, the Sun heats the ionosphere decreasing radio wave refraction and the MUF
D	In darkness, solar absorption drops greatly while atmospheric ionization remains steady

14. - E3C12

How does the maximum distance of ground-wave propagation change when the signal frequency is increased?

Select	Answer
A	It decreases
B	It increases
C	It peaks at roughly 14 MHz
D	It stays the same

15. - E4A09

When using a computer's soundcard input to digitize signals, what is the highest frequency signal that can be digitized without aliasing?

Select	Answer
A	One-tenth the sample rate
B	The same as the sample rate
C	One-half the sample rate
D	It depends on how the data is stored internally

16. - E4B07

What do the subscripts of S parameters represent?

Select	Answer
A	The relative time between measurements
B	Frequency order of the measurements
C	The port or ports at which measurements are made
D	Relative quality of the data

17. - E4C17

Which of the following has the largest effect on an SDR receiver's linearity?

Select	Answer
A	Anti-aliasing input filter bandwidth
B	RAM speed used for data storage
C	CPU register width in bits
D	Analog-to-digital converter sample width in bits

18. - E4D06

What is the term for unwanted signals generated by the mixing of two or more signals?

Select	Answer
A	Amplifier desensitization
B	Neutralization
C	Intermodulation interference
D	Adjacent channel interference

19. - E4E02

Which of the following types of receiver noise can often be reduced with a DSP noise filter?

Select	Answer
A	Broadband white noise
B	Power line noise
C	Ignition noise
D	All of these choices are correct

20. - E5A02

What is resonance in an electrical circuit?

Select	Answer
A	The highest frequency that will pass current
B	The frequency at which the capacitive reactance equals the inductive reactance
C	The lowest frequency that will pass current
D	The frequency at which the reactive impedance equals the resistive impedance

21. - E5B07

What is the phase angle between the voltage across and the current through a series RLC circuit if XC is 500 ohms, R is 1 kilohm, and XL is 250 ohms?

Select	Answer
A	14.0 degrees with the voltage leading the current
B	68.2 degrees with the voltage leading the current
C	68.2 degrees with the voltage lagging the current
D	14.0 degrees with the voltage lagging the current

22. - E5C13

What coordinate system is often used to display the resistive, inductive, and/or capacitive reactance components of impedance?

Select	Answer
A	Rectangular coordinates
B	Faraday grid
C	Elliptical coordinates
D	Maidenhead grid

23. - E5D14

What is reactive power?

Select	Answer
A	Power lost because of capacitor leakage
B	Wattless, nonproductive power
C	Power consumed in circuit Q
D	Power consumed in wire resistance in an inductor

24. - E6A15

Which semiconductor material contains excess holes in the outer shell of electrons?

Select	Answer
A	Superconductor-type
B	N-type
C	P-type
D	Bipolar-type

25. - E6B05

What characteristic of a PIN diode makes it useful as an RF switch or attenuator?

Select	Answer
A	A large region of intrinsic material
B	Extremely high reverse breakdown voltage
C	Ability to dissipate large amounts of power
D	Reverse bias controls its forward voltage drop

26. - E6C14

What is the primary advantage of using a Programmable Gate Array (PGA) in a logic circuit?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	Complex logic functions can be created in a single integrated circuit
C	Many similar gates are less expensive than a mixture of gate types
D	A PGA contains its own internal power supply

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 less than 20 Hz to approximately 300 MHz
C	From approximately 10 Hz to no more than 3000 kHz
D	From about 100 kHz to at least 1000 GHz

28. - E6E03

Which of the following materials is likely to provide the highest frequency of operation when used in MMICs?

Select	Answer
A	Silicon nitride
B	Gallium nitride
C	Silicon
D	Silicon dioxide

29. - E6F09

What is the efficiency of a photovoltaic cell?

Select	Answer
A	The effective payback period
B	The open-circuit voltage divided by the short-circuit current under full illumination
C	The output RF power divided by the input DC power
D	The relative fraction of light that is converted to current

30. - E7A07

What logical operation does a NAND gate perform?

Select	Answer
A	It produces logic "1" at its output only when all inputs are logic "1"
B	It produces logic "0" at its output if some but not all inputs are logic "1"
C	It produces logic "0" at its output only when all inputs are logic "1"
D	It produces logic "0" at its output only when all inputs are logic "0"

31. - E7B16

What is the effect of intermodulation products in a linear power amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	Creation of parasitic oscillations
C	Transmission of spurious signals
D	Low efficiency

32. - E7C06

What are the distinguishing features of an elliptical filter?

Select	Answer
A	Extremely flat response over its pass band with gradually rounded stop band corners
B	Extremely sharp cutoff with one or more notches in the stop band
C	Gradual passband rolloff with extreme stop band ripple
D	Gradual passband rolloff with minimal stop band ripple

33. - E7D16

When several electrolytic filter capacitors are connected in series to increase the operating voltage of a power supply filter circuit, why should resistors be connected across each capacitor?

Select	Answer
A	To equalize, as much as possible, the voltage drop across each capacitor
B	To provide a safety bleeder to discharge the capacitors when the supply is off
C	All of these choices are correct
D	To provide a minimum load current to reduce voltage excursions at light loads

34. - E7E10

How does a diode detector function?

Select	Answer
A	By rectification and filtering of RF signals
B	By breakdown of the Zener voltage
C	By sensing the change of reactance in the diode with respect to frequency
D	By mixing signals with noise in the transition region of the diode

35. - E7F01

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

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

36. - E7G03

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

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

37. - E7H05

How is positive feedback supplied in a Pierce oscillator?

Select	Answer
A	Through a neutralizing capacitor
B	Through link coupling
C	Through a tapped coil
D	Through a quartz crystal

38. - E8A02

What type of wave has a rise time significantly faster than its fall time (or vice versa)?

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

39. - E8B10

What describes frequency division multiplexing?

Select	Answer
A	The transmitted signal jumps from band to band at a predetermined rate
B	Two or more information streams are merged into a digital combiner, which then pulse position modulates the transmitter
C	The transmitted signal is divided into packets of information
D	Two or more information streams are merged into a baseband, which then modulates the transmitter

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	4.8 kHz
C	5.76 kHz
D	15.36 kHz

41. - E8D08

What parameter might indicate that excessively high input levels are causing distortion in an AFSK signal?

Select	Answer
A	Intermodulation Distortion (IMD)
B	Signal to noise ratio
C	Repeat Request Rate (RRR)
D	Baud rate

42. - E9A18

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

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

43. - E9B09

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

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

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

45. - E9D10

What happens to feed point impedance at the base of a fixed length HF mobile antenna as the frequency of operation is lowered?

Select	Answer
A	The radiation resistance increases and the capacitive reactance increases
B	The radiation resistance increases and the capacitive reactance decreases
C	The radiation resistance decreases and the capacitive reactance increases
D	The radiation resistance decreases and the capacitive reactance decreases

46. - E9E02

What is the name of an antenna matching system that matches an unbalanced feed line to an antenna by feeding the driven element both at the center of the element and at a fraction of a wavelength to one side of center?

Select	Answer
A	The stub match
B	The gamma match
C	The epsilon match
D	The delta match

47. - E9F09

What is the approximate physical length of a solid polyethylene dielectric coaxial transmission line that is electrically one-quarter wavelength long at 7.2 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	10 meters
B	6.9 meters
C	24 meters
D	50 meters

48. - E9G04

What are the two families of circles and arcs that make up a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Resistance and reactance
B	Voltage and impedance
C	Reactance and voltage
D	Resistance and voltage

49. - E9H07

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

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

50. - E0A05

What is one of the potential hazards of using microwaves in the amateur radio bands?

Select	Answer
A	Microwaves are ionizing radiation
B	The high gain antennas commonly used can result in high exposure levels
C	Microwaves often travel long distances by ionospheric reflection
D	The extremely high frequency energy can damage the joints of antenna structures