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

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

2. - E1B07

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

Select	Answer
A	0.5
B	2.0
C	1.0
D	3.0

3. - E1C07

What is meant by local control?

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

4. - E1D02

What is the amateur satellite service?

Select	Answer
A	A radio communications service using stations on Earth satellites for public service broadcast
B	A spacecraft launching service for amateur-built satellites
C	A radio navigation service using satellites for the purpose of self training, intercommunication and technical studies carried out by amateurs
D	A radio communications service using amateur radio stations on satellites

5. - E1E13

Which of these choices is an acceptable method for monitoring the applicants if a VEC opts to conduct an exam session remotely?

Select	Answer
A	Use a real-time video link and the Internet to connect the exam session to the observing VEs
B	The exam proctor observes the applicants and reports any violations
C	Record the exam session on video tape for later review by the VE team
D	Have each applicant sign an affidavit stating that all session rules were followed

6. - E1F11

Which of the following best describes one of the standards that must be met by an external RF power amplifier if it is to qualify for a grant of FCC certification?

Select	Answer
A	It must produce full legal output when driven by not more than 5 watts of mean RF input power
B	It must satisfy the FCC's spurious emission standards when operated at the lesser of 1500 watts or its full output power
C	It must be capable of external RF switching between its input and output networks
D	It must exhibit a gain of 0 dB or less over its full output range

7. - E2A14

What technology is used to track, in real time, balloons carrying amateur radio transmitters?

Select	Answer
A	Bandwidth compressed LORAN
B	APRS
C	Doppler shift of beacon signals
D	Radar

8. - E2B12

How are analog SSTV images typically transmitted on the HF bands?

Select	Answer
A	Varying tone frequencies representing the video are transmitted using single sideband
B	Varying tone frequencies representing the video are transmitted using PSK
C	Video is converted to equivalent Baudot representation
D	Video is converted to equivalent ASCII representation

9. - E2C08

Which of the following contacts may be confirmed through the U.S. QSL bureau system?

Select	Answer
A	Special event contacts between stations in the U.S.
B	Repeater contacts between U.S. club members
C	Contacts using tactical call signs
D	Contacts between a U.S. station and a non-U.S. station

10. - E2D13

What type of modulation is used for JT65 contacts?

Select	Answer
A	RTTY
B	Multi-tone AFSK
C	IEEE 802.11
D	PSK

11. - E2E02

What do the letters FEC mean as they relate to digital operation?

Select	Answer
A	First Error Correction
B	Final Error Correction
C	Fatal Error Correction
D	Forward Error Correction

12. - E3A11

What is a typical range for tropospheric propagation of microwave signals?

Select	Answer
A	10 miles to 50 miles
B	1200 miles
C	2500 miles
D	100 miles to 300 miles

13. - E3B09

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

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

14. - E3C01

What does the term ray tracing describe in regard to radio communications?

Select	Answer
A	Determining the radiation pattern from an array of antennas
B	Evaluating high voltage sources for X-Rays
C	The process in which an electronic display presents a pattern
D	Modeling a radio wave's path through the ionosphere

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

16. - E4B01

Which of the following factors most affects the accuracy of a frequency counter?

Select	Answer
A	Time base accuracy
B	Input attenuator accuracy
C	Decade divider accuracy
D	Temperature coefficient of the logic

17. - E4C12

What is an undesirable effect of using too wide a filter bandwidth in the IF section of a receiver?

Select	Answer
A	Thermal-noise distortion
B	Filter ringing
C	Undesired signals may be heard
D	Output-offset overshoot

18. - E4D14

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

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

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

20. - E5A04

What is the magnitude of the impedance of a circuit with a resistor, an inductor and a capacitor all in parallel, at resonance?

Select	Answer
A	Low, as compared to the circuit resistance
B	Approximately equal to inductive reactance
C	Approximately equal to circuit resistance
D	Approximately equal to capacitive reactance

21. - E5B05

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

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

22. - E5C03

Which of the following represents an inductive reactance in polar coordinates?

Select	Answer
A	A positive real part
B	A positive phase angle
C	A negative phase angle
D	A negative real part

23. - E5D16

What is the power factor of an R-L circuit having a 30 degree phase angle between the voltage and the current?

Select	Answer
A	0.5
B	0.577
C	0.866
D	1.73

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

25. - E6B06

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

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

26. - E6C14

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

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

27. - E6D01

How many turns will be required to produce a 5-microhenry inductor using a powdered-iron toroidal core that has an inductance index (A L) value of 40 microhenrys/100 turns?

Select	Answer
A	35 turns
B	13 turns
C	141 turns
D	79 turns

28. - E6E12

Why are high-power RF amplifier ICs and transistors sometimes mounted in ceramic packages?

Select	Answer
A	Enhanced sensitivity to light
B	Better dissipation of heat
C	To provide a low-pass frequency response
D	High-voltage insulating ability

29. - E6F02

What happens to the conductivity of a photoconductive material when light shines on it?

Select	Answer
A	It increases
B	It stays the same
C	It becomes unstable
D	It decreases

30. - E7A08

What logical operation does an OR gate perform?

Select	Answer
A	It produces logic "1" at its output if all inputs are logic "0"
B	It produces logic "1" at its output if any or all inputs are logic "1"
C	It produces logic "0" at its output if all inputs are logic "1"
D	It only produces logic "0" at its output when all inputs are logic "1"

31. - E7B03

Which of the following components form the output of a class D amplifier circuit?

Select	Answer
A	A temperature compensating load resistor to improve linearity
B	A matched load resistor to prevent damage by switching transients
C	A high-pass filter to compensate for low gain at low frequencies
D	A low-pass filter to remove switching signal components

32. - E7C13

What is one advantage of a Pi-matching network over an L-matching network consisting of a single inductor and a single capacitor?

Select	Answer
A	L-networks cannot perform impedance transformation
B	Pi-networks have fewer components
C	The Q of Pi-networks can be varied depending on the component values chosen
D	Pi-networks are designed for balanced input and output

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	The high frequency inverter design uses much smaller transformers and filter components for an equivalent power output
C	It uses a large power factor compensation capacitor to create free power from the unused portion of the AC cycle
D	It uses a diode bridge rectifier for increased output

34. - E7E11

Which type of detector is used for demodulating SSB signals?

Select	Answer
A	Product detector
B	Phase comparator
C	Discriminator
D	Phase detector

35. - E7F15

Which of the following is an advantage of a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter vs an Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) digital filter?

Select	Answer
A	FIR filters can respond faster to impulses
B	FIR filters delay all frequency components of the signal by the same amount
C	FIR filters are easier to implement for a given set of passband rolloff requirements
D	All of these choices are correct

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. - E7H12

Which of the following must be done to insure that a crystal oscillator provides the frequency specified by the crystal manufacturer?

Select	Answer
A	Provide the crystal with a specified parallel capacitance
B	Provide the crystal with a specified parallel inductance
C	Bias the crystal at a specified current
D	Bias the crystal at a specified voltage

38. - E8A04

What is "dither" with respect to analog to digital converters?

Select	Answer
A	An error caused by irregular quantization step size
B	An abnormal condition where the converter cannot settle on a value to represent the signal
C	A method of decimation by randomly skipping samples
D	A small amount of noise added to the input signal to allow more precise representation of a signal over time

39. - E8B07

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing is a technique used for which type of amateur communication?

Select	Answer
A	High speed digital modes
B	EME
C	Extremely low-power contacts
D	OFDM signals are not allowed on amateur bands

40. - E8C01

How is Forward Error Correction implemented?

Select	Answer
A	By varying the frequency shift of the transmitted signal according to a predefined algorithm
B	By transmitting a special algorithm to the receiving station along with the data characters
C	By the receiving station repeating each block of three data characters
D	By transmitting extra data that may be used to detect and correct transmission errors

41. - E8D09

What is considered a good minimum IMD level for an idling PSK signal?

Select	Answer
A	+15 dB
B	-20 dB
C	-30 dB
D	+10 dB

42. - E9A03

Why would one need to know the feed point impedance of an antenna?

Select	Answer
A	To calculate the front-to-back ratio of the antenna
B	To match impedances in order to minimize standing wave ratio on the transmission line
C	To calculate the front-to-side ratio of the antenna
D	To measure the near-field radiation density from a transmitting antenna

43. - E9B10

What is the principle of a Method of Moments analysis?

Select	Answer
A	A wire is modeled as a series of segments, each having a uniform value of current
B	A wire is modeled as a series of segments, each having a distinct value of voltage across it
C	A wire is modeled as a single sine-wave current generator
D	A wire is modeled as a series of points, each having a distinct location in space

44. - E9C15

How does the radiation pattern of a horizontally polarized 3-element beam antenna vary with its height above ground?

Select	Answer
A	The main lobe takeoff angle decreases with increasing height
B	The horizontal beam width decreases with height
C	The main lobe takeoff angle increases with increasing height
D	The horizontal beam width increases with height

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

46. - E9E06

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

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

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	24 meters
C	50 meters
D	6.9 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	Resistance and voltage
D	Reactance and voltage

49. - E9H09

Which of the following describes the construction of a receiving loop antenna?

Select	Answer
A	One or more turns of wire wound in the shape of a large open coil
B	A large circularly polarized antenna
C	A vertical antenna coupled to a feed line through an inductive loop of wire
D	A small coil of wire tightly wound around a toroidal ferrite core

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