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

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1. - E1A08

If a station in a message forwarding system inadvertently forwards a message that is in violation of FCC rules, who is primarily accountable for the rules violation?

Select	Answer
A	The control operator of the originating station
B	The control operators of all the stations in the system
C	The control operator of the packet bulletin board station
D	The control operators of all the stations in the system not authenticating the source from which they accept communications

2. - E1B05

What is the National Radio Quiet Zone?

Select	Answer
A	An area surrounding the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
B	An area in Puerto Rico surrounding the Arecibo Radio Telescope
C	An area in New Mexico surrounding the White Sands Test Area
D	An area in Florida surrounding Cape Canaveral

3. - E1C08

What is the maximum permissible duration of a remotely controlled station's transmissions if its control link malfunctions?

Select	Answer
A	10 minutes
B	5 minutes
C	30 seconds
D	3 minutes

4. - E1D09

Which UHF amateur service bands have frequencies available for a space station?

Select	Answer
A	70 cm only
B	70 cm and 33 cm
C	33 cm and 13 cm
D	70 cm and 13 cm

5. - E1E09

What may be the penalty for a VE who fraudulently administers or certifies an examination?

Select	Answer
A	A fine of up to $1000 per occurrence
B	All of these choices are correct
C	A sentence of up to one year in prison
D	Revocation of the VE's amateur station license grant and the suspension of the VE's amateur operator license grant

6. - E1F08

Which of the following types of amateur station communications are prohibited?

Select	Answer
A	Communications that have a religious content
B	Communications transmitted for hire or material compensation, except as otherwise provided in the rules
C	Communications that have a political content, except as allowed by the Fairness Doctrine
D	Communications in a language other than English

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. - E2B14

What aspect of an amateur slow-scan television signal encodes the brightness of the picture?

Select	Answer
A	Tone amplitude
B	Sync frequency
C	Sync amplitude
D	Tone frequency

9. - E2C06

During a VHF/UHF contest, in which band segment would you expect to find the highest level of activity?

Select	Answer
A	In the middle of each band, usually on the national calling frequency
B	In the middle of the band, usually 25 kHz above the national calling frequency
C	At the top of each band, usually in a segment reserved for contests
D	In the weak signal segment of the band, with most of the activity near the calling frequency

10. - E2D01

Which of the following digital modes is especially designed for use for meteor scatter signals?

Select	Answer
A	FSK441
B	WSPR
C	APRS
D	Hellschreiber

11. - E2E12

Which type of control is used by stations using the Automatic Link Enable (ALE) protocol?

Select	Answer
A	Local
B	Automatic
C	ALE can use any type of control
D	Remote

12. - E3A05

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

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

13. - E3B05

Which amateur bands typically support long-path propagation?

Select	Answer
A	30 meters to 10 meters
B	160 meters to 40 meters
C	160 meters to 10 meters
D	6 meters to 2 meters

14. - E3C01

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

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

15. - E4A12

Which of the following procedures is an important precaution to follow when connecting a spectrum analyzer to a transmitter output?

Select	Answer
A	Attenuate the transmitter output going to the spectrum analyzer
B	Use high quality double shielded coaxial cables to reduce signal losses
C	All of these choices are correct
D	Match the antenna to the load

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	Intermodulation distortion occurs
C	Cross modulation occurs
D	Harmonics are generated

17. - E4C02

Which of the following portions of a receiver can be effective in eliminating image signal interference?

Select	Answer
A	A properly adjusted product detector
B	A narrow IF filter
C	A notch filter
D	A front-end filter or pre-selector

18. - E4D07

Which describes the most significant effect of an off-frequency signal when it is causing cross-modulation interference to a desired signal?

Select	Answer
A	A large increase in background noise
B	The desired signal can no longer be heard
C	The off-frequency unwanted signal is heard in addition to the desired signal
D	A reduction in apparent signal strength

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	Low inductance ground connections at both ends of the shield
C	Tying all ground connections to a common point resulting in differential mode currents in the shield
D	Use of braided shielding material

20. - E5A07

What is the magnitude of the current at the input of a parallel RLC circuit at resonance?

Select	Answer
A	L/R
B	Maximum
C	Minimum
D	R/L

21. - E5B13

What letter is commonly used to represent susceptance?

Select	Answer
A	X
B	Y
C	B
D	G

22. - E5C01

Which of the following represents a capacitive reactance in rectangular notation?

Select	Answer
A	Omega
B	-jX
C	X
D	+jX

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

24. - E6A13

What do the initials CMOS stand for?

Select	Answer
A	Common Mode Organic Silicon
B	Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor
C	Common Mode Oscillating System
D	Complementary Mica-Oxide Silicon

25. - E6B12

What is one common use for PIN diodes?

Select	Answer
A	As a high voltage rectifier
B	As a constant voltage source
C	As a constant current source
D	As an RF switch

26. - E6C08

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

Select	Answer
A	2
B	1
C	4
D	3

27. - E6D13

What is the primary cause of inductor self-resonance?

Select	Answer
A	Non-linear core hysteresis
B	Inductive kickback
C	The skin effect
D	Inter-turn capacitance

28. - E6E06

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

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

29. - E6F12

What absorbs the energy from light falling on a photovoltaic cell?

Select	Answer
A	Holes
B	Protons
C	Electrons
D	Photons

30. - E7A08

What logical operation does an OR gate perform?

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

31. - E7B11

In Figure E7-1, what is the purpose of R3?

Select	Answer
A	Fixed bias
B	Self bias
C	Emitter bypass
D	Output load resistor

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

33. - E7D01

What is one characteristic of a linear electronic voltage regulator?

Select	Answer
A	It has a ramp voltage as its output
B	The conduction of a control element is varied to maintain a constant output voltage
C	It eliminates the need for a pass transistor
D	The control element duty cycle is proportional to the line or load conditions

34. - E7E10

How does a diode detector function?

Select	Answer
A	By mixing signals with noise in the transition region of the diode
B	By breakdown of the Zener voltage
C	By sensing the change of reactance in the diode with respect to frequency
D	By rectification and filtering of RF 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	FIR filters can respond faster to impulses
B	All of these choices are correct
C	FIR filters are easier to implement for a given set of passband rolloff requirements
D	FIR filters delay all frequency components of the signal by the same amount

36. - E7G01

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

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

37. - E7H10

What information is contained in the lookup table of a direct digital frequency synthesizer?

Select	Answer
A	The amplitude values that represent a sine-wave output
B	The phase relationship between a reference oscillator and the output waveform
C	The synthesizer frequency limits and frequency values stored in the radio memories
D	The phase relationship between a voltage-controlled oscillator and the output waveform

38. - E8A12

What is an advantage of using digital signals instead of analog signals to convey the same information?

Select	Answer
A	Digital signals can be regenerated multiple times without error
B	All of these choices are correct
C	Less complex circuitry is required for digital signal generation and detection
D	Digital signals always occupy a narrower bandwidth

39. - E8B07

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

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

40. - E8C09

Which is the name of a digital code where each preceding or following character changes by only one bit?

Select	Answer
A	Excess 3 code
B	Gray code
C	Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code
D	Binary Coded Decimal Code

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	Repeat Request Rate (RRR)
C	Baud rate
D	Signal to noise ratio

42. - E9A02

What antenna has no gain in any direction?

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

43. - E9B13

What does the abbreviation NEC stand for when applied to antenna modeling programs?

Select	Answer
A	Numerical Electromagnetic Code
B	Numeric Electrical Computation
C	Next Element Comparison
D	National Electrical Code

44. - E9C03

What is the radiation pattern of two 1/4 wavelength vertical antennas spaced a 1/2 wavelength apart and fed in phase?

Select	Answer
A	A Figure-8 end-fire along the axis of the array
B	A Figure-8 broadside to the axis of the array
C	Cardioid
D	Omni-directional

45. - E9D12

Which of the following would provide the best RF ground for your station?

Select	Answer
A	A 50 ohm resistor connected to ground
B	An electrically short connection to a metal water pipe
C	An electrically short connection to 3 or 4 interconnected ground rods via a series RF choke
D	An electrically short connection to 3 or 4 interconnected ground rods driven into the Earth

46. - E9E05

How must the driven element in a 3-element Yagi be tuned to use a hairpin matching system?

Select	Answer
A	The driven element radiation resistance must be higher than the characteristic impedance of the transmission line
B	The driven element resonance must be lower than the operating frequency
C	The driven element reactance must be capacitive
D	The driven element reactance must be inductive

47. - E9F01

What is the velocity factor of a transmission line?

Select	Answer
A	The velocity of the wave in the transmission line divided by the velocity of light in a vacuum
B	The ratio of the characteristic impedance of the line to the terminating impedance
C	The velocity of the wave in the transmission line multiplied by the velocity of light in a vacuum
D	The index of shielding for coaxial cable

48. - E9G09

What third family of circles is often added to a Smith chart during the process of solving problems?

Select	Answer
A	Antenna-length circles
B	Coaxial-length circles
C	Radiation-pattern circles
D	Standing wave ratio circles

49. - E9H10

How can the output voltage of a multiple turn receiving loop antenna be increased?

Select	Answer
A	By increasing the number of wire turns in the loop and reducing the area of the loop structure
B	By increasing either the number of wire turns in the loop or the area of the loop structure or both
C	By reducing the permeability of the loop shield
D	By winding adjacent turns in opposing directions

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 received noise
C	Lightning protection
D	Reduce RFI to telephones and home entertainment systems

Figure E6-5

Figure E7-1