US Amateur Radio - Amateur Extra (Element 4, 2020-2024) Practice Test

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1. - 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	Mica
B	Zinc oxide
C	Beryllium Oxide
D	Uranium Hexafluoride

2. - E1A07

What is the maximum power permitted on the 2200 meter band?

Select	Answer
A	5 watts EIRP (Equivalent isotropic radiated power)
B	50 watts PEP
C	100 watts PEP
D	1 watt EIRP (Equivalent isotropic radiated power)

3. - E1B03

Within what distance must an amateur station protect an FCC monitoring facility from harmful interference?

Select	Answer
A	30 miles
B	1 mile
C	3 miles
D	10 miles

4. - E1C04

What is meant by IARP?

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

5. - E1D02

Which of the following may transmit special codes intended to obscure the meaning of messages?

Select	Answer
A	Auxiliary relay links carrying repeater audio
B	Data containing personal information
C	Telecommand signals from a space telecommand station
D	Binary control characters

6. - E1E05

What is the minimum passing score on all amateur operator license examinations?

Select	Answer
A	Minimum passing score of 80%
B	Minimum passing score of 74%
C	Minimum passing score of 70%
D	Minimum passing score of 77%

7. - E1F08

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

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

8. - E2A02

Which of the following occurs when a satellite is using an inverting linear transponder?

Select	Answer
A	Doppler shift is reduced because the uplink and downlink shifts are in opposite directions
B	Upper sideband on the uplink becomes lower sideband on the downlink, and vice versa
C	All these choices are correct
D	Signal position in the band is reversed

9. - E2B01

How many times per second is a new frame transmitted in a fast-scan (NTSC) television system?

Select	Answer
A	30
B	120
C	90
D	60

10. - E2C02

Which of the following best describes the term self-spotting? in connection with HF contest operating?

Select	Answer
A	A manual technique for rapidly zero beating or tuning to a station's frequency before calling that station
B	An automatic method for rapidly zero beating or tuning to a station's frequency before calling that station
C	The acceptable practice of manually posting the call signs of stations on a spotting network
D	The often-prohibited practice of posting one's own call sign and frequency on a spotting network

11. - E2D03

Which of the following digital modes is especially useful for EME communications?

Select	Answer
A	PACTOR III
B	JT65
C	Olivia
D	MSK144

12. - E2E05

Which of these digital modes does not support keyboard-to-keyboard operation?

Select	Answer
A	MFSK
B	PSK31
C	PACTOR
D	RTTY

13. - E3A13

Which of these emission modes is best for auroral propagation?

Select	Answer
A	FM
B	SSB
C	RTTY
D	CW

14. - E3B12

What is the primary characteristic of chordal hop propagation?

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

15. - E3C10

What does the 304A solar parameter measure?

Select	Answer
A	UV emissions at 304 angstroms, correlated to the solar flux index
B	The solar wind velocity at 304 degrees from the solar equator, correlated to solar activity
C	The ratio of x-ray flux to radio flux, correlated to sunspot number
D	The solar emission at 304 GHz, correlated to x-ray flare levels

16. - E4A01

Which of the following limits the highest frequency signal that can be accurately displayed on a digital oscilloscope?

Select	Answer
A	Sampling rate of the analog-to-digital converter
B	All these choices are correct
C	Amount of memory
D	Q of the circuit

17. - 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	100 watts
B	25 watts
C	75 watts
D	125 watts

18. - E4C01

What is an effect of excessive phase noise in a receiver's local oscillator?

Select	Answer
A	It limits the receiver's ability to receive strong signals
B	It can affect the receiver's frequency calibration
C	It can combine with strong signals on nearby frequencies to generate interference
D	It decreases receiver third-order intercept point

19. - E4D02

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

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

20. - E4E06

What is one type of electrical interference that might be caused by a nearby personal computer?

Select	Answer
A	A clicking noise at intervals of a few seconds
B	The appearance of unstable modulated or unmodulated signals at specific frequencies
C	A loud AC hum in the audio output of your station receiver
D	A whining type noise that continually pulses off and on

21. - E5A05

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 bandwidth is increased
C	Matching bandwidth is decreased
D	Matching range is increased

22. - E5B06

What is susceptance?

Select	Answer
A	The ratio of magnetic field to electric field
B	The magnetic impedance of a circuit
C	A measure of the efficiency of a transformer
D	The imaginary part of admittance

23. - E5C03

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

Select	Answer
A	A negative magnitude
B	A positive magnitude
C	A positive phase angle
D	A negative phase angle

24. - E5D02

Why is it important to keep lead lengths short for components used in circuits for VHF and above?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	To increase the thermal time constant
C	To avoid unwanted inductive reactance
D	To maintain component lifetime

25. - E6A10

In Figure E6-1, what is the schematic symbol for an N-channel dual-gate MOSFET?

Select	Answer
A	5
B	2
C	4
D	6

26. - E6B05

What characteristic of a PIN diode makes it useful as an RF switch?

Select	Answer
A	Extremely high reverse breakdown voltage
B	Reverse bias controls its forward voltage drop
C	Ability to dissipate large amounts of power
D	Low junction capacitance

27. - 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

28. - E6D04

Which materials are commonly used as a core in an inductor?

Select	Answer
A	Cobalt and aluminum
B	Ferrite and brass
C	Teflon and Delrin
D	Polystyrene and polyethylene

29. - E6E08

How is power supplied to the most common type of MMIC?

Select	Answer
A	Through a resistor and/or RF choke connected to the amplifier output lead
B	Through a capacitor and RF choke connected to the amplifier input lead
C	MMICs require no operating bias
D	Directly to the bias voltage (VCC IN) lead

30. - E6F09

What is the efficiency of a photovoltaic cell?

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

31. - E7A01

Which circuit is bistable?

Select	Answer
A	A bipolar amplifier
B	A flip-flop
C	An OR gate
D	An AND gate

32. - E7B06

Which of the following amplifier types reduces even-order harmonics?

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

33. - E7C02

Which of the following is a property of a T-network with series capacitors and a parallel shunt inductor?

Select	Answer
A	It is a high-pass filter
B	It is a notch filter
C	It is a low-pass filter
D	It is a band-pass filter

34. - 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	Matching of day and night charge rates
C	Prevention of battery undercharge
D	Control of electrolyte levels during battery discharge

35. - E7E04

What is one way a single-sideband phone signal can be generated?

Select	Answer
A	By driving a product detector with a DSB signal
B	By using a loop modulator followed by a mixer
C	By using a balanced modulator followed by a filter
D	By using a reactance modulator followed by a mixer

36. - E7F14

Which of the following would allow a digital signal processing filter to create a sharper filter response?

Select	Answer
A	Double-precision math routines
B	Complex phasor representations
C	More taps
D	Higher data rate

37. - E7G12

What is an operational amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	A high-gain, direct-coupled differential amplifier with very high input impedance and very low output impedance
B	An amplifier used to increase the average output of frequency modulated amateur signals to the legal limit
C	A RF amplifier used in the UHF and microwave regions
D	A digital audio amplifier whose characteristics are determined by components external to the amplifier

38. - E7H14

What is a phase-locked loop circuit?

Select	Answer
A	An electronic servo loop consisting of a phase detector, a low-pass filter, a voltage-controlled oscillator, and a stable reference oscillator
B	An electronic circuit also known as a monostable multivibrator
C	An electronic servo loop consisting of a ratio detector, reactance modulator, and voltage-controlled oscillator
D	An electronic circuit consisting of a precision push-pull amplifier with a differential input

39. - E8A06

What is the approximate ratio of PEP-to-average power in a typical single-sideband phone signal?

Select	Answer
A	2.5 to 1
B	25 to 1
C	1 to 1
D	100 to 1

40. - E8B11

What is digital time division multiplexing?

Select	Answer
A	Two or more data streams share the same channel by transmitting time of transmission as the sub-carrier
B	Two or more data streams are assigned to discrete sub-carriers on an FM transmitter
C	Two or more signals are quadrature modulated to increase bandwidth efficiency
D	Two or more signals are arranged to share discrete time slots of a data transmission

41. - E8C03

Why should phase-shifting of a PSK signal be done at the zero crossing of the RF signal?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	To simplify modulation
C	To minimize bandwidth
D	To improve carrier suppression

42. - E8D08

What parameter evaluates distortion of an AFSK signal caused by excessive input audio levels?

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

43. - E9A05

What is included in the total resistance of an antenna system?

Select	Answer
A	Radiation resistance plus transmission resistance
B	Radiation resistance plus loss resistance
C	Transmission-line resistance plus radiation resistance
D	Radiation resistance plus space impedance

44. - E9B05

What type of antenna pattern is shown in Figure E9-2?

Select	Answer
A	Azimuth
B	Radiation resistance
C	Polarization
D	Elevation

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

46. - E9D07

What is an advantage of using top loading in a shortened HF vertical antenna?

Select	Answer
A	Improved radiation efficiency
B	Higher losses
C	Lower Q
D	Greater structural strength

47. - E9E02

What is the name of an antenna matching system that matches an unbalanced feed line to an antenna by feeding the driven element both at the center of the element and at a fraction of a wavelength to one side of center?

Select	Answer
A	The stub match
B	The delta match
C	The gamma match
D	The epsilon match

48. - E9F05

What is the approximate physical length of a solid polyethylene dielectric coaxial transmission line that is electrically 1/4 wavelength long at 14.1 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	4.3 meters
B	10.6 meters
C	5.3 meters
D	3.5 meters

49. - 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	Resistance and reactance
D	Reactance and voltage

50. - E9H09

What is a Pennant antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A four-element, high-gain vertical array invented by George Pennant
B	A form of rhombic antenna terminated in a variable capacitor to provide frequency diversity
C	A stealth antenna built to look like a flagpole
D	A small, vertically oriented receiving antenna consisting of a triangular loop terminated in approximately 900 ohms

Figure E6-1

Figure E9-2