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

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1. - E1A05

What is the maximum power output permitted on the 60 meter band?

Select	Answer
A	50 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to an isotropic radiator
B	50 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to a dipole
C	100 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to an isotropic radiator
D	100 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to the gain of a half-wave dipole

2. - E1B05

What is the National Radio Quiet Zone?

Select	Answer
A	An area in Florida surrounding Cape Canaveral
B	An area in New Mexico surrounding the White Sands Test Area
C	An area surrounding the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
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 local 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 automatic control there is no control operator

4. - E1D06

Which of the following is a requirement of a space station?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	The space station must cease all transmissions after 5 years
C	The space station must be capable of terminating transmissions by telecommand when directed by the FCC
D	The space station must be capable of changing its orbit whenever such a change is ordered by NASA

5. - E1E08

To which of the following examinees may a VE not administer an examination?

Select	Answer
A	Friends of the VE
B	Employees of the VE
C	Relatives of the VE as listed in the FCC rules
D	All of these choices are correct

6. - E1F12

Who may be the control operator of an auxiliary station?

Select	Answer
A	Any licensed amateur operator
B	Only Technician, General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators
C	Only Amateur Extra Class operators
D	Only General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators

7. - E2A02

What is the direction of a descending pass for an amateur satellite?

Select	Answer
A	From west to east
B	From east to west
C	From north to south
D	From south to north

8. - E2B10

Which of the following is an acceptable bandwidth for Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) based voice or SSTV digital transmissions made on the HF amateur bands?

Select	Answer
A	3 KHz
B	15 KHz
C	20 KHz
D	10 KHz

9. - E2C13

What indicator is required to be used by U.S.-licensed operators when operating a station via remote control where the transmitter is located in the U.S.?

Select	Answer
A	/R# where # is the district of the remote station
B	No additional indicator is required
C	The ARRL section of the remote station
D	/ followed by the USPS two letter abbreviation for the state in which the remote station is located

10. - E2D13

What type of modulation is used for JT65 contacts?

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

11. - E2E03

How is the timing of JT65 contacts organized?

Select	Answer
A	By exchanging ACK/NAK packets
B	It depends on the lunar phase
C	Stations take turns on alternate days
D	Alternating transmissions at 1 minute intervals

12. - E3A05

Tropospheric propagation of microwave signals often occurs along what weather related structure?

Select	Answer
A	Lightning discharges
B	Gray-line
C	Sprites and jets
D	Warm and cold fronts

13. - E3B12

What is the primary characteristic of chordal hop propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Propagation away from the great circle bearing between stations
B	Propagation across the geomagnetic equator
C	Successive ionospheric reflections without an intermediate reflection from the ground
D	Signals reflected back toward the transmitting station

14. - E3C14

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

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

15. - E4A06

What is the effect of aliasing in a digital or computer-based oscilloscope?

Select	Answer
A	False signals are displayed
B	All signals will have a DC offset
C	False triggering occurs
D	Calibration of the vertical scale is no longer valid

16. - E4B15

Which of the following can be used as a relative measurement of the Q for a series-tuned circuit?

Select	Answer
A	The inductance to capacitance ratio
B	The bandwidth of the circuit's frequency response
C	The frequency shift
D	The resonant frequency of the circuit

17. - E4C01

What is an effect of excessive phase noise in the local oscillator section of a receiver?

Select	Answer
A	It reduces receiver sensitivity
B	It decreases receiver third-order intermodulation distortion dynamic range
C	It limits the receiver's ability to receive strong signals
D	It can cause strong signals on nearby frequencies to interfere with reception of weak signals

18. - E4D02

Which of the following describes two problems caused by poor dynamic range in a communications receiver?

Select	Answer
A	Oscillator instability requiring frequent retuning and loss of ability to recover the opposite sideband
B	Oscillator instability and severe audio distortion of all but the strongest received signals
C	Cross-modulation of the desired signal and desensitization from strong adjacent signals
D	Cross-modulation of the desired signal and insufficient audio power to operate the speaker

19. - E4E15

Which of the following can cause shielded cables to radiate or receive interference?

Select	Answer
A	Common mode currents on the shield and conductors
B	Use of braided shielding material
C	Tying all ground connections to a common point resulting in differential mode currents in the shield
D	Low inductance ground connections at both ends of the shield

20. - E5A17

What is the result of increasing the Q of an impedance-matching circuit?

Select	Answer
A	It has no effect on impedance matching
B	Matching range is increased
C	Matching bandwidth is decreased
D	Matching bandwidth is increased

21. - E5B12

What is admittance?

Select	Answer
A	The inverse of impedance
B	The turns ratio of a transformer
C	The unit used for Q factor
D	The term for the gain of a field effect transistor

22. - E5C14

Which point on Figure E5-2 best represents the impedance of a series circuit consisting of a 400 ohm resistor and a 38 picofarad capacitor at 14 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	Point 4
B	Point 5
C	Point 6
D	Point 2

23. - E5D18

How many watts are consumed in a circuit having a power factor of 0.71 if the apparent power is 500VA?

Select	Answer
A	1.42 mW
B	252 W
C	704 W
D	355 W

24. - E6A17

What are the names of the three terminals of a field-effect transistor?

Select	Answer
A	Gate 1, gate 2, drain
B	Emitter, base, collector
C	Emitter, base 1, base 2
D	Gate, drain, source

25. - E6B08

Which of the following describes a type of semiconductor diode?

Select	Answer
A	Metal-semiconductor junction
B	Electrolytic rectifier
C	CMOS-field effect
D	Thermionic emission diode

26. - E6C08

In Figure E6-5, what is the schematic symbol for a NAND gate?

Select	Answer
A	1
B	3
C	4
D	2

27. - E6D15

What is current in the primary winding of a transformer called if no load is attached to the secondary?

Select	Answer
A	Direct current
B	Stabilizing current
C	Magnetizing current
D	Excitation current

28. - E6E06

What characteristics of the MMIC make it a popular choice for VHF through microwave circuits?

Select	Answer
A	Controlled gain, low noise figure, and constant input and output impedance over the specified frequency range
B	Plate current that is controlled by a control grid
C	Nearly infinite gain, very high input impedance, and very low output impedance
D	The ability to retrieve information from a single signal even in the presence of other strong signals

29. - E6F09

What is the efficiency of a photovoltaic cell?

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

30. - E7A03

Which of the following can divide the frequency of a pulse train by 2?

Select	Answer
A	A multiplexer
B	An OR gate
C	An XOR gate
D	A flip-flop

31. - E7B17

Why are odd-order rather than even-order intermodulation distortion products of concern in linear power amplifiers?

Select	Answer
A	Because they are relatively far in frequency from the desired signal
B	Because they invert the sidebands causing distortion
C	Because they maintain the sidebands, thus causing multiple duplicate signals
D	Because they are relatively close in frequency to the desired signal

32. - E7C12

Which describes a Pi-L-network used for matching a vacuum tube final amplifier to a 50 ohm unbalanced output?

Select	Answer
A	A network with only three discrete parts
B	A matching network in which all components are isolated from ground
C	A Pi-network with an additional series inductor on the output
D	A Phase Inverter Load network

33. - E7D09

What is the main reason to use a charge controller with a solar power system?

Select	Answer
A	Prevention of battery damage due to overcharge
B	Prevention of battery undercharge
C	Control of electrolyte levels during battery discharge
D	Matching of day and night charge rates

34. - E7E12

What is a frequency discriminator stage in a FM receiver?

Select	Answer
A	An FM generator circuit
B	A circuit for detecting FM signals
C	An automatic band-switching circuit
D	A circuit for filtering two closely adjacent signals

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

36. - E7G05

How can unwanted ringing and audio instability be prevented in a multi-section op-amp RC audio filter circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Restrict both gain and Q
B	Restrict gain but increase Q
C	Increase both gain and Q
D	Restrict Q but increase gain

37. - E7H05

How is positive feedback supplied in a Pierce oscillator?

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

38. - E8A11

What type of information can be conveyed using digital waveforms?

Select	Answer
A	Data
B	Video signals
C	Human speech
D	All of these choices are correct

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. - E8C03

When performing phase shift keying, why is it advantageous to shift phase precisely at the zero crossing of the RF carrier?

Select	Answer
A	It improves carrier suppression
B	All of these choices are correct
C	This results in the least possible transmitted bandwidth for the particular mode
D	It is easier to demodulate with a conventional, non-synchronous detector

41. - E8D01

Why are received spread spectrum signals resistant to interference?

Select	Answer
A	Signals not using the spread spectrum algorithm are suppressed in the receiver
B	If interference is detected by the receiver it will signal the transmitter to change frequencies
C	The high power used by a spread spectrum transmitter keeps its signal from being easily overpowered
D	The receiver is always equipped with a digital blanker

42. - E9A02

What antenna has no gain in any direction?

Select	Answer
A	Quarter-wave vertical
B	Half-wave dipole
C	Isotropic antenna
D	Yagi

43. - E9B15

What is the front-to-back ratio of the radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-2?

Select	Answer
A	28 dB
B	15 dB
C	3 dB
D	24 dB

44. - E9C09

What is a G5RV antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A wide band dipole using shorted coaxial cable for the radiating elements and fed with a 4:1 balun
B	A phased array antenna consisting of multiple loops
C	A multi-band trap antenna
D	A multi-band dipole antenna fed with coax and a balun through a selected length of open wire transmission line

45. - E9D05

What is a disadvantage of using a multiband trapped antenna?

Select	Answer
A	It must be neutralized
B	It is too sharply directional at lower frequencies
C	It radiates the harmonics and fundamental equally well
D	It might radiate harmonics

46. - E9E06

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

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

47. - E9F16

Which of the following is a significant difference between foam dielectric coaxial cable and solid dielectric cable, assuming all other parameters are the same?

Select	Answer
A	Foam dielectric has higher velocity factor
B	Foam dielectric has lower safe operating voltage limits
C	All of these choices are correct
D	Foam dielectric has lower loss per unit of length

48. - E9G06

On the Smith chart shown in Figure E9-3, what is the name for the large outer circle on which the reactance arcs terminate?

Select	Answer
A	Impedance axis
B	Reactance axis
C	Polar axis
D	Prime axis

49. - E9H06

What is the triangulation method of direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	Antenna headings from several different receiving locations are used to locate the signal source
B	A fixed receiving station uses three different antennas to plot the location of the signal source
C	A fixed receiving station plots three headings to the signal source
D	The geometric angles of sky waves from the source are used to determine its position

50. - E0A01

What is the primary function of an external earth connection or ground rod?

Select	Answer
A	Reduce RF current flow between pieces of equipment
B	Reduce RFI to telephones and home entertainment systems
C	Lightning protection
D	Reduce received noise

Figure E5-2

Figure E6-5

Figure E9-2

Figure E9-3