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

2. - E1B02

Which of the following factors might cause the physical location of an amateur station apparatus or antenna structure to be restricted?

Select	Answer
A	The location is of geographical or horticultural importance
B	The location is in an ITU Zone designated for coordination with one or more foreign governments
C	The location is of environmental importance or significant in American history, architecture, or culture
D	The location is near an area of political conflict

3. - E1C10

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

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

4. - E1D06

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

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

5. - E1E07

What should a VE do if a candidate fails to comply with the examiner's instructions during an amateur operator license examination?

Select	Answer
A	Warn the candidate that continued failure to comply will result in termination of the examination
B	Immediately terminate everyone's examination and close the session
C	Immediately terminate the candidate's examination
D	Allow the candidate to complete the examination, but invalidate the results

6. - E1F08

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

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

7. - E2A14

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

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

8. - E2B15

What signals SSTV receiving equipment to begin a new picture line?

Select	Answer
A	Specific tone frequencies
B	Elapsed time
C	Specific tone amplitudes
D	A two-tone signal

9. - E2C11

How should you generally identify your station when attempting to contact a DX station during a contest or in a pileup?

Select	Answer
A	Send only the last two letters of your call sign until you make contact
B	Send your full call sign once or twice
C	Send your full call sign and grid square
D	Send the call sign of the DX station three times, the words "this is", then your call sign three times

10. - E2D10

How can an APRS station be used to help support a public service communications activity?

Select	Answer
A	APRS stations with General Personnel Scanners can automatically relay the participant numbers and time as they pass the check points
B	An APRS station with an emergency medical technician can automatically transmit medical data to the nearest hospital
C	All of these choices are correct
D	An APRS station with a GPS unit can automatically transmit information to show a mobile station's position during the event

11. - E2E05

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

Select	Answer
A	MFSK
B	Winlink
C	RTTY
D	PSK31

12. - E3A03

When scheduling EME contacts, which of these conditions will generally result in the least path loss?

Select	Answer
A	When the Moon is full
B	When the MUF is above 30 MHz
C	When the Moon is at perigee
D	When the Moon is at apogee

13. - E3B11

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

Select	Answer
A	Early evening
B	Around sunrise
C	Any time
D	Around sunset

14. - E3C05

What orientation of Bz (B sub z) increases the likelihood that incoming particles from the Sun will cause disturbed conditions?

Select	Answer
A	Eastward
B	Northward
C	Westward
D	Southward

15. - E4A04

What determines the upper frequency limit for a computer soundcard-based oscilloscope program?

Select	Answer
A	Analog-to-digital conversion speed of the soundcard
B	Amount of memory on the soundcard
C	Q of the interface of the interface circuit
D	All of these choices are correct

16. - E4B05

If a frequency counter with a specified accuracy of +/- 10 ppm reads 146,520,000 Hz, what is the most the actual frequency being measured could differ from the reading?

Select	Answer
A	146.52 Hz
B	146.52 kHz
C	10 Hz
D	1465.20 Hz

17. - E4C05

What does a value of -174 dBm/Hz represent with regard to the noise floor of a receiver?

Select	Answer
A	The theoretical noise at the input of a perfect receiver at room temperature
B	The noise figure of a 1 Hz bandwidth receiver
C	The galactic noise contribution to minimum detectable signal
D	The minimum detectable signal as a function of receive frequency

18. - E4D13

Which of the following can cause receiver desensitization?

Select	Answer
A	Strong adjacent channel signals
B	Audio bias adjusted too high
C	Squelch gain misadjusted
D	Audio gain adjusted too low

19. - E4E05

How can noise from an electric motor be suppressed?

Select	Answer
A	By installing a high pass filter in series with the motor's power leads
B	By installing a bypass capacitor in series with the motor leads
C	By installing a brute-force AC-line filter in series with the motor leads
D	By using a ground-fault current interrupter in the circuit used to power the motor

20. - E5A15

Which of the following can increase Q for inductors and capacitors?

Select	Answer
A	Lower reactance
B	Lower losses
C	Higher self-resonant frequency
D	Lower self-resonant frequency

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

22. - E5C13

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

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

23. - E5D05

Which parasitic characteristic increases with conductor length?

Select	Answer
A	Permeability
B	Malleability
C	Permittivity
D	Inductance

24. - E6A16

What are the majority charge carriers in N-type semiconductor material?

Select	Answer
A	Holes
B	Free electrons
C	Free protons
D	Free neutrons

25. - E6B09

What is a common use for point contact diodes?

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

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

27. - E6D16

What is the common name for a capacitor connected across a transformer secondary that is used to absorb transient voltage spikes?

Select	Answer
A	Snubber capacitor
B	Trimmer capacitor
C	Clipper capacitor
D	Feedback capacitor

28. - E6E02

Which of the following device packages is a through-hole type?

Select	Answer
A	DIP
B	Ball grid array
C	PLCC
D	SOT

29. - E6F11

What is the approximate open-circuit voltage produced by a fully-illuminated silicon photovoltaic cell?

Select	Answer
A	0.1 V
B	1.5 V
C	0.5 V
D	12 V

30. - E7A06

What is a characteristic of a monostable multivibrator?

Select	Answer
A	It produces a continuous square wave oscillating between 1 and 0
B	It maintains a constant output voltage, regardless of variations in the input voltage
C	It stores one bit of data in either a 0 or 1 state
D	It switches momentarily to the opposite binary state and then returns to its original state after a set time

31. - E7B18

What is a characteristic of a grounded-grid amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	Low bandwidth
B	Low input impedance
C	High power gain
D	High filament voltage

32. - E7C09

What is a Jones filter as used as part of an HF receiver IF stage?

Select	Answer
A	A filter that removes impulse noise E7C10 (B) Which of the following filters would be the best choice for use in a 2 meter repeater duplexer? A. A crystal filter B. A cavity filter C. A DSP filter D. An L-C filter
B	A variable bandwidth crystal lattice filter
C	An automatic notch filter
D	A special filter that emphasizes image responses

33. - E7D15

What is the purpose of a "step-start" circuit in a high voltage power supply?

Select	Answer
A	To allow for remote control of the power supply
B	To allow the filter capacitors to charge gradually
C	To compensate for variations of the incoming line voltage
D	To provide a dual-voltage output for reduced power applications

34. - E7E03

How does an analog phase modulator function?

Select	Answer
A	By varying the tuning of a microphone preamplifier to produce AM signals
B	By varying the tuning of an amplifier tank circuit to produce AM signals
C	By varying the tuning of an amplifier tank circuit to produce PM signals
D	By varying the tuning of a microphone preamplifier to produce PM signals

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	Converting data to binary code decimal form
D	Attenuating the signal

36. - E7G02

What is the effect of ringing in a filter?

Select	Answer
A	Undesired oscillations added to the desired signal
B	A reduction in high frequency response
C	An echo caused by a long time delay
D	Partial cancellation of the signal over a range of frequencies

37. - E7H15

Which of these functions can be performed by a phase-locked loop?

Select	Answer
A	Photovoltaic conversion, optical coupling
B	Frequency synthesis, FM demodulation
C	Comparison of two digital input signals, digital pulse counter
D	Wide-band AF and RF power amplification

38. - E8A04

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

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

39. - E8B10

What describes frequency division multiplexing?

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

40. - E8C01

How is Forward Error Correction implemented?

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

41. - E8D08

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

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

42. - E9A07

What is meant by antenna gain?

Select	Answer
A	The ratio of the radiated signal strength of an antenna in the direction of maximum radiation to that of a reference antenna
B	The ratio of the amount of power radiated by an antenna compared to the transmitter output power
C	The ratio of the signal in the forward direction to that in the opposite direction
D	The final amplifier gain minus the transmission line losses

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

44. - E9C05

What is an OCFD antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A dipole feed approximately 1/3 the way from one end with a 4:1 balun to provide multiband operation
B	An eight band dipole antenna using octophase filters
C	A remotely tunable dipole antenna using orthogonally controlled frequency diversity
D	A multiband dipole antenna using one-way circular polarization for frequency diversity

45. - E9D04

Why should an HF mobile antenna loading coil have a high ratio of reactance to resistance?

Select	Answer
A	To maximize losses
B	To swamp out harmonics
C	To minimize losses
D	To minimize the Q

46. - E9E01

What system matches a higher impedance transmission line to a lower impedance antenna by connecting the line to the driven element in two places spaced a fraction of a wavelength each side of element center?

Select	Answer
A	The stub matching system
B	The gamma matching system
C	The delta matching system
D	The omega matching system

47. - E9F01

What is the velocity factor of a transmission line?

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

48. - E9G02

What type of coordinate system is used in a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Voltage circles and current arcs
B	Resistance lines and reactance chords
C	Voltage lines and current chords
D	Resistance circles and reactance arcs

49. - E9H11

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

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

50. - E0A09

Which insulating material commonly used as a thermal conductor for some types of electronic devices is extremely toxic if broken or crushed and the particles are accidentally inhaled?

Select	Answer
A	Zinc oxide
B	Uranium Hexafluoride
C	Mica
D	Beryllium Oxide