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

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1. - E1A07

Which amateur band requires transmission on specific channels rather than on a range of frequencies?

Select	Answer
A	17 meter band
B	30 meter band
C	12 meter band
D	60 meter band

2. - E1B04

What must be done before placing an amateur station within an officially designated wilderness area or wildlife preserve, or an area listed in the National Register of Historical Places?

Select	Answer
A	A form FSD-15 must be submitted to the Department of the Interior
B	An Environmental Assessment must be submitted to the FCC
C	A letter of intent must be filed with the National Audubon Society
D	A proposal must be submitted to the National Park Service

3. - E1C04

What is meant by IARP?

Select	Answer
A	An international amateur radio permit that allows U.S. amateurs to operate in certain countries of the Americas
B	The internal amateur radio practices policy of the FCC
C	A forecast of intermittent aurora radio propagation
D	An indication of increased antenna reflected power

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	Any amateur station whose licensee has filed a pre-space notification with the FCC's International Bureau
D	Only those of General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators

5. - E1E10

What must the administering VEs do after the administration of a successful examination for an amateur operator license?

Select	Answer
A	They must collect and submit the documents to the coordinating VEC for grading
B	They must collect and send the documents to the FCC according to instructions
C	They must submit the application document to the coordinating VEC according to the coordinating VEC instructions
D	They must collect and send the documents to the NCVEC for grading

6. - E1F04

Which of the following geographic descriptions approximately describes "Line A"?

Select	Answer
A	A line roughly parallel to and east of the U.S. Pacific coastline
B	A line roughly parallel to and south of the U.S.-Canadian border
C	A line roughly parallel to and north of the U.S.-Mexican border and Gulf coastline
D	A line roughly parallel to and west of the U.S. Atlantic coastline

7. - E2A08

Why should effective radiated power to a satellite which uses a linear transponder be limited?

Select	Answer
A	To prevent creating errors in the satellite telemetry
B	To avoid interfering with terrestrial QSOs
C	To avoid reducing the downlink power to all other users
D	To prevent the satellite from emitting out-of-band signals

8. - E2B13

How many lines are commonly used in each frame of an amateur slow-scan color television picture?

Select	Answer
A	30 or 60
B	180 or 360
C	128 or 256
D	60 or 100

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

10. - E2D13

What type of modulation is used for JT65 contacts?

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

11. - E2E04

What is indicated when one of the ellipses in an FSK crossed-ellipse display suddenly disappears?

Select	Answer
A	The receiver has drifted 5 kHz from the desired receive frequency
B	The mark and space signal have been inverted
C	Selective fading has occurred
D	One of the signal filters is saturated

12. - E3A01

What is the approximate maximum separation measured along the surface of the Earth between two stations communicating by Moon bounce?

Select	Answer
A	500 miles, if the Moon is at perigee
B	2000 miles, if the Moon is at apogee
C	5000 miles, if the Moon is at perigee
D	12,000 miles, if the Moon is visible by both stations

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. - E3C13

What type of polarization is best for ground-wave propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Elliptical
B	Horizontal
C	Vertical
D	Circular

15. - E4A10

Which of the following displays multiple digital signal states simultaneously?

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

16. - E4B14

What happens if a dip meter is too tightly coupled to a tuned circuit being checked?

Select	Answer
A	A less accurate reading results
B	Cross modulation occurs
C	Harmonics are generated
D	Intermodulation distortion occurs

17. - E4C09

Which of the following choices is a good reason for selecting a high frequency for the design of the IF in a conventional HF or VHF communications receiver?

Select	Answer
A	Fewer components in the receiver
B	Reduced drift
C	Improved receiver noise figure
D	Easier for front-end circuitry to eliminate image responses

18. - E4D08

What causes intermodulation in an electronic circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Too little gain
B	Nonlinear circuits or devices
C	Lack of neutralization
D	Positive feedback

19. - E4E10

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

Select	Answer
A	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
B	All of these choices are correct
C	The interfering signal can be several kHz in width and usually repeats at regular intervals across a HF band
D	The interfering signal may drift slowly across the HF spectrum

20. - E5A11

What is the half-power bandwidth of a parallel resonant circuit that has a resonant frequency of 7.1 MHz and a Q of 150?

Select	Answer
A	315.6 Hz
B	157.8 Hz
C	47.3 kHz
D	23.67 kHz

21. - E5B01

What is the term for the time required for the capacitor in an RC circuit to be charged to 63.2% of the applied voltage?

Select	Answer
A	An exponential rate of one
B	One exponential period
C	A time factor of one
D	One time constant

22. - E5C03

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

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

23. - E5D10

How can the true power be determined in an AC circuit where the voltage and current are out of phase?

Select	Answer
A	By multiplying the reactive power times the power factor
B	By dividing the reactive power by the power factor
C	By multiplying the apparent power times the power factor
D	By dividing the apparent power by the power factor

24. - E6A02

Which of the following semiconductor materials contains excess free electrons?

Select	Answer
A	P-type
B	N-type
C	Bipolar
D	Insulated gate

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. - E6C03

What is tri-state logic?

Select	Answer
A	Low power logic devices designed to operate at 3 volts
B	Proprietary logic devices manufactured by Tri-State Devices
C	Logic devices with 0, 1, and high impedance output states
D	Logic devices that utilize ternary math

27. - E6D03

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

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

28. - E6E12

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

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

29. - E6F14

Which of the following is true of LCD displays?

Select	Answer
A	They only display alphanumeric symbols
B	They are hard to view in high ambient light conditions
C	They may be hard view through polarized lenses
D	All of these choices are correct

30. - E7A09

What logical operation is performed by an exclusive NOR gate?

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

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

32. - E7C01

How are the capacitors and inductors of a low-pass filter Pi-network arranged between the network's input and output?

Select	Answer
A	A capacitor is connected between the input and ground, another capacitor is connected between the output and ground, and an inductor is connected between input and output
B	Two inductors are in series between the input and output, and a capacitor is connected between the two inductors and ground
C	An inductor is connected between the input and ground, another inductor is connected between the output and ground, and a capacitor is connected between the input and output
D	Two capacitors are in series between the input and output, and an inductor is connected between the two capacitors and ground

33. - E7D03

What device is typically used as a stable reference voltage in a linear voltage regulator?

Select	Answer
A	A Zener diode
B	A varactor diode
C	An SCR
D	A tunnel diode

34. - E7E05

What circuit is added to an FM transmitter to boost the higher audio frequencies?

Select	Answer
A	An audio prescaler
B	A de-emphasis network
C	A pre-emphasis network
D	A heterodyne suppressor

35. - E7F08

What is the function of decimation with regard to digital filters?

Select	Answer
A	Removing unnecessary significant digits
B	Reducing the effective sample rate by removing samples
C	Attenuating the signal
D	Converting data to binary code decimal form

36. - E7G04

What is meant by the term op-amp input offset voltage?

Select	Answer
A	The difference between the output voltage of the op-amp and the input voltage required in the immediately following stage
B	The differential input voltage needed to bring the open loop output voltage to zero
C	The potential between the amplifier input terminals of the op-amp in an open loop condition
D	The output voltage of the op-amp minus its input voltage

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

38. - E8A01

What is the name of the process that shows that a square wave is made up of a sine wave plus all of its odd harmonics?

Select	Answer
A	Differential analysis
B	Fourier analysis
C	Numerical analysis
D	Vector analysis

39. - E8B09

What is meant by deviation ratio?

Select	Answer
A	The ratio of the carrier center frequency to the audio modulating frequency
B	The ratio of the audio modulating frequency to the center carrier frequency
C	The ratio of the maximum carrier frequency deviation to the highest audio modulating frequency
D	The ratio of the highest audio modulating frequency to the average audio modulating frequency

40. - E8C10

What is an advantage of Gray code in digital communications where symbols are transmitted as multiple bits

Select	Answer
A	It facilitates error detection
B	It has more resolution than simple binary
C	It has more possible states than simple binary
D	It increases security

41. - E8D11

What is one advantage of using ASCII code for data communications?

Select	Answer
A	It uses one character as a shift code to send numeric and special characters
B	It contains fewer information bits per character than any other code
C	It is possible to transmit both upper and lower case text
D	It includes built in error correction features

42. - E9A10

Which of the following choices is a way to improve the efficiency of a ground-mounted quarter-wave vertical antenna?

Select	Answer
A	Shorten the radiating element
B	Isolate the coax shield from ground
C	Install a good radial system
D	Reduce the diameter of the radiating element

43. - E9B04

What may occur when a directional antenna is operated at different frequencies within the band for which it was designed?

Select	Answer
A	The gain may change depending on frequency
B	Element spacing limits could be exceeded
C	Feed point impedance may become negative
D	The E-field and H-field patterns may reverse

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

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

46. - E9E07

What term best describes the interactions at the load end of a mismatched transmission line?

Select	Answer
A	Reflection coefficient
B	Characteristic impedance
C	Dielectric constant
D	Velocity factor

47. - E9F04

What is the typical velocity factor for a coaxial cable with solid polyethylene dielectric?

Select	Answer
A	0.66
B	0.30
C	2.70
D	0.10

48. - E9G04

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

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

49. - E9H11

What characteristic of a cardioid pattern antenna is useful for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	A very sharp peak
B	Broad band response
C	A very sharp single null
D	High-radiation angle

50. - E0A05

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

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