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

Logging in (or registering) will help the system to select questions that you need to focus on.

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

2. - E1B01

Which of the following constitutes a spurious emission?

Select	Answer
A	An amateur station transmission made at random without the proper call sign identification
B	Any transmitted signal that unintentionally interferes with another licensed radio station
C	An emission outside its necessary bandwidth that can be reduced or eliminated without affecting the information transmitted
D	A signal transmitted to prevent its detection by any station other than the intended recipient

3. - E1C12

What types of communications may be transmitted to amateur stations in foreign countries?

Select	Answer
A	Communications incidental to the purpose of the amateur service and remarks of a personal nature
B	Business-related messages for non-profit organizations
C	All of these choices are correct
D	Messages intended for connection to users of the maritime satellite service

4. - E1D10

Which amateur stations are eligible to be telecommand stations?

Select	Answer
A	Any amateur station so designated by the ITU
B	Any amateur station so designated by the space station licensee, subject to the privileges of the class of operator license held by the control operator
C	Any amateur station designated by NASA
D	All of these choices are correct

5. - E1E08

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

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

6. - E1F07

When may an amateur station send a message to a business?

Select	Answer
A	When transmitting international third-party communications
B	When neither the amateur nor his or her employer has a pecuniary interest in the communications
C	When the control operator is employed by the FCC or another government agency
D	When the total money involved does not exceed $25

7. - E2A12

What is one way to predict the location of a satellite at a given time?

Select	Answer
A	By means of the Doppler data for the specified satellite
B	By calculations using the Keplerian elements for the specified satellite
C	By adding the mean anomaly to the orbital inclination
D	By subtracting the mean anomaly from the orbital inclination

8. - E2B16

Which is a video standard used by North American Fast Scan ATV stations?

Select	Answer
A	DRM
B	PAL
C	Scottie
D	NTSC

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

10. - E2D08

What type of packet frame is used to transmit APRS beacon data?

Select	Answer
A	Unnumbered Information
B	Disconnect
C	Acknowledgement
D	Connect

11. - E2E06

What is the most common data rate used for HF packet?

Select	Answer
A	1200 baud
B	48 baud
C	300 baud
D	110 baud

12. - E3A12

What is the cause of auroral activity?

Select	Answer
A	The interaction in the E layer of charged particles from the Sun with the Earth's magnetic field
B	The interaction in the F2 layer between the solar wind and the Van Allen belt
C	A low sunspot level combined with tropospheric ducting
D	Meteor showers concentrated in the extreme northern and southern latitudes

13. - E3B02

What is the approximate maximum range for signals using transequatorial propagation?

Select	Answer
A	2500 miles
B	5000 miles
C	7500 miles
D	1000 miles

14. - E3C12

How does the maximum distance of ground-wave propagation change when the signal frequency is increased?

Select	Answer
A	It decreases
B	It increases
C	It stays the same
D	It peaks at roughly 14 MHz

15. - E4A14

What is the purpose of the prescaler function on a frequency counter?

Select	Answer
A	It divides a higher frequency signal so a low-frequency counter can display the input frequency
B	It multiplies a higher frequency signal so a low-frequency counter can display the operating frequency
C	It amplifies low level signals for more accurate counting
D	It prevents oscillation in a low-frequency counter circuit

16. - E4B06

How much power is being absorbed by the load when a directional power meter connected between a transmitter and a terminating load reads 100 watts forward power and 25 watts reflected power?

Select	Answer
A	125 watts
B	25 watts
C	75 watts
D	100 watts

17. - E4C08

An SDR receiver is overloaded when input signals exceed what level?

Select	Answer
A	One-half the maximum sample rate
B	The reference voltage of the analog-to-digital converter
C	One-half the maximum sampling buffer size
D	The maximum count value of the analog-to-digital converter

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	Cross-modulation of the desired signal and desensitization from strong adjacent signals
C	Oscillator instability and severe audio distortion of all but the strongest received signals
D	Cross-modulation of the desired signal and insufficient audio power to operate the speaker

19. - E4E10

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

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

20. - E5A12

What is the half-power bandwidth of a parallel resonant circuit that has a resonant frequency of 3.7 MHz and a Q of 118?

Select	Answer
A	31.4 kHz
B	218.3 kHz
C	436.6 kHz
D	15.7 kHz

21. - E5B05

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

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

22. - E5C10

When using rectangular coordinates to graph the impedance of a circuit, what does the vertical axis represent?

Select	Answer
A	The difference between the resistive and reactive components
B	Reactive component
C	The sum of the reactive and resistive components
D	Resistive component

23. - E5D09

What happens to reactive power in an AC circuit that has both ideal inductors and ideal capacitors?

Select	Answer
A	It is dissipated in the formation of inductive and capacitive fields
B	It is dissipated as heat in the circuit
C	It is repeatedly exchanged between the associated magnetic and electric fields, but is not dissipated
D	It is dissipated as kinetic energy in the circuit

24. - E6A08

What term indicates the frequency at which the grounded-base current gain of a transistor has decreased to 0.7 of the gain obtainable at 1 kHz?

Select	Answer
A	Alpha cutoff frequency
B	Beta cutoff frequency
C	Alpha rejection frequency
D	Corner frequency

25. - E6B09

What is a common use for point contact diodes?

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

26. - E6C11

In Figure E6-5, what is the schematic symbol for the NOT operation (inverter)?

Select	Answer
A	4
B	5
C	2
D	6

27. - E6D10

What is a primary advantage of using a toroidal core instead of a solenoidal core in an inductor?

Select	Answer
A	Toroidal cores confine most of the magnetic field within the core material
B	Toroidal cores make it easier to couple the magnetic energy into other components
C	Toroidal cores exhibit greater hysteresis
D	Toroidal cores have lower Q characteristics

28. - E6E07

Which of the following is typically used to construct a MMIC-based microwave amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	Point-to-point construction
B	Ground-plane construction
C	Microstrip construction
D	Wave-soldering construction

29. - E6F05

Which describes an optical shaft encoder?

Select	Answer
A	A device which detects rotation of a control by interrupting a light source with a patterned wheel
B	A device for generating RTTY signals by means of a rotating light source
C	A digital encryption device often used to encrypt spacecraft control signals
D	A device which measures the strength of a beam of light using analog to digital conversion

30. - E7A04

How many flip-flops are required to divide a signal frequency by 4?

Select	Answer
A	4
B	1
C	8
D	2

31. - E7B06

Which of the following amplifier types reduces or eliminates even order harmonics?

Select	Answer
A	Push-push
B	Push-pull
C	Class C
D	Class AB

32. - E7C14

Which mode is most affected by non-linear phase response in a receiver IF filter?

Select	Answer
A	Video
B	Meteor scatter
C	Digital
D	Single-Sideband voice

33. - E7D14

What is one purpose of a "bleeder" resistor in a conventional unregulated power supply?

Select	Answer
A	To boost the amount of output current
B	To cut down on waste heat generated by the power supply
C	To improve output voltage regulation
D	To balance the low-voltage filament windings

34. - E7E11

Which type of detector is used for demodulating SSB signals?

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

35. - E7F12

What digital process is applied to I and Q signals in order to recover the baseband modulation information?

Select	Answer
A	Fast Fourier Transform
B	Signal conditioning
C	Quadrature mixing
D	Decimation

36. - E7G08

How does the gain of an ideal operational amplifier vary with frequency?

Select	Answer
A	It increases linearly with increasing frequency
B	It decreases linearly with increasing frequency
C	It does not vary with frequency
D	It decreases logarithmically with increasing frequency

37. - E7H08

Which of the following components can be used to reduce thermal drift in crystal oscillators?

Select	Answer
A	Toroidal inductors
B	Wirewound resistors
C	NP0 capacitors
D	Non-inductive resistors

38. - E8A02

What type of wave has a rise time significantly faster than its fall time (or vice versa)?

Select	Answer
A	A cosine wave
B	A sine wave
C	A sawtooth wave
D	A square wave

39. - E8B01

What is the term for the ratio between the frequency deviation of an RF carrier wave and the modulating frequency of its corresponding FM-phone signal?

Select	Answer
A	Quieting index
B	FM compressibility
C	Percentage of modulation
D	Modulation index

40. - E8C10

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

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

41. - E8D06

Which of the following indicates likely overmodulation of an AFSK signal such as PSK or MFSK?

Select	Answer
A	High reflected power
B	Strong ALC action
C	Harmonics on higher bands
D	Rapid signal fading

42. - E9A18

What term describes station output, taking into account all gains and losses?

Select	Answer
A	Effective radiated power
B	Power factor
C	Half-power bandwidth
D	Apparent power

43. - E9B07

How does the total amount of radiation emitted by a directional gain antenna compare with the total amount of radiation emitted from an isotropic antenna, assuming each is driven by the same amount of power?

Select	Answer
A	The total amount of radiation from the directional antenna is increased by the gain of the antenna
B	They are the same
C	The total amount of radiation from the directional antenna is stronger by its front-to-back ratio
D	The radiation from the isotropic antenna is 2.15 dB stronger than that from the directional antenna

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 multi-band dipole antenna fed with coax and a balun through a selected length of open wire transmission line
C	A phased array antenna consisting of multiple loops
D	A multi-band trap antenna

45. - E9D04

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

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

46. - E9E09

Which of these matching systems is an effective method of connecting a 50 ohm coaxial cable feed line to a grounded tower so it can be used as a vertical antenna?

Select	Answer
A	All of these choices are correct
B	Gamma match
C	Hairpin match
D	Double-bazooka match

47. - E9F05

What is the approximate physical length of a solid polyethylene dielectric coaxial transmission line that is electrically one-quarter wavelength long at 14.1 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	2.3 meters
B	20 meters
C	0.2 meters
D	3.5 meters

48. - E9G08

What is the process of normalization with regard to a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Reassigning reactance values with regard to the resistance axis
B	Reassigning impedance values with regard to the prime center
C	Reassigning prime center with regard to the reactance axis
D	Reassigning resistance values with regard to the reactance axis

49. - E9H05

What is the main drawback of a wire-loop antenna for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	It has a bidirectional pattern
B	It is non-rotatable
C	It is practical for use only on VHF bands
D	It receives equally well in all directions

50. - E0A07

How may dangerous levels of carbon monoxide from an emergency generator be detected?

Select	Answer
A	Any ordinary smoke detector can be used
B	Only with a carbon monoxide detector
C	By the odor
D	By the yellowish appearance of the gas

Figure E6-5