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

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1. - E0A08

What does SAR measure?

Select	Answer
A	Signal Amplification Rating
B	The rate at which RF energy is absorbed by the body
C	Synthetic Aperture Ratio of the human body
D	The rate of RF energy reflected from stationary terrain

2. - E1A01

Which of the following carrier frequencies is illegal for LSB AFSK emissions on the 17 meter band RTTY and data segment of 18.068 to 18.110 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	18.107 MHz
B	18.110 MHz
C	18.100 MHz
D	18.068 MHz

3. - E1B07

To what type of regulations does PRB-1 apply?

Select	Answer
A	FAA tower height limits
B	Homeowners associations
C	Use of wireless devices in vehicles
D	State and local zoning

4. - E1C14

How long must an operator wait after filing a notification with the Utilities Technology Council (UTC) before operating on the 2200 meter or 630 meter band?

Select	Answer
A	Operators may not operate until a test signal has been transmitted in coordination with the local power company
B	Operators must not operate until approval is received
C	Operators may operate after 30 days, providing they have not been told that their station is within 1 km of PLC systems using those frequencies
D	Operations may commence immediately, and may continue unless interference is reported by the UTC

5. - E1D10

Which amateur stations are eligible to be telecommand stations of space stations (subject to the privileges of the class of operator license held by the control operator of the station)?

Select	Answer
A	Any amateur station so designated by the space station licensee
B	Any amateur station designated by NASA
C	Any amateur station so designated by the ITU
D	All these choices are correct

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

7. - E1F04

Which of the following geographic descriptions approximately describes "Line A"?

Select	Answer
A	A line roughly parallel to and south of the border between the U.S. and Canada
B	A line roughly parallel to and north of the border between the U.S. and Mexico
C	A line roughly parallel to and east of the U.S. Pacific coastline
D	A line roughly parallel to and west of the U.S. Atlantic coastline

8. - E2A01

What is the direction of an ascending pass for an amateur satellite?

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

9. - E2B03

How is an interlaced scanning pattern generated in a fast-scan (NTSC) television system?

Select	Answer
A	By scanning each field from bottom to top
B	By scanning two fields simultaneously
C	By scanning odd numbered lines in one field and even numbered lines in the next
D	By scanning lines from left to right in one field and right to left in the next

10. - E2C03

From which of the following bands is amateur radio contesting generally excluded?

Select	Answer
A	30 meters
B	6 meters
C	2 meters
D	33 centimeters

11. - E2D05

What is one advantage of the JT65 mode?

Select	Answer
A	Uses only a 65 Hz bandwidth
B	The ability to decode signals which have a very low signal-to-noise ratio
C	Permits fast-scan TV transmissions over narrow bandwidth
D	Easily copied by ear if necessary

12. - E2E09

Which of the following HF digital modes uses variable-length coding for bandwidth efficiency?

Select	Answer
A	MT63
B	RTTY
C	PSK31
D	PACTOR

13. - E3A11

What is a typical range for tropospheric propagation of microwave signals?

Select	Answer
A	10 miles to 50 miles
B	1200 miles
C	2500 miles
D	100 miles to 300 miles

14. - E3B06

Which of the following amateur bands most frequently provides long-path propagation?

Select	Answer
A	6 meters
B	20 meters
C	80 meters
D	10 meters

15. - E3C11

What does VOACAP software model?

Select	Answer
A	AC voltage and impedance
B	AC current and impedance
C	HF propagation
D	VHF radio propagation

16. - E4A04

How is the compensation of an oscilloscope probe typically adjusted?

Select	Answer
A	A square wave is displayed and the probe is adjusted until the horizontal portions of the displayed wave are as nearly flat as possible
B	A DC voltage standard is displayed and the probe is adjusted until the displayed voltage is accurate
C	A high frequency sine wave is displayed and the probe is adjusted for maximum amplitude
D	A frequency standard is displayed and the probe is adjusted until the deflection time is accurate

17. - E4B07

What do the subscripts of S parameters represent?

Select	Answer
A	The port or ports at which measurements are made
B	Frequency order of the measurements
C	Relative quality of the data
D	The relative time between measurements

18. - E4C04

What is the noise figure of a receiver?

Select	Answer
A	The ratio of the noise bandwidth in hertz to the theoretical bandwidth of a resistive network
B	The ratio in dB of the noise generated by the receiver to the theoretical minimum noise
C	The ratio of thermal noise to atmospheric noise
D	The ratio of atmospheric noise to phase noise

19. - E4D01

What is meant by the blocking dynamic range of a receiver?

Select	Answer
A	The minimum difference in dB between the levels of two FM signals that will cause one signal to block the other
B	The minimum difference in dB between two signals which produce third-order intermodulation products greater than the noise floor
C	The difference in dB between the noise floor and the third-order intercept point
D	The difference in dB between the noise floor and the level of an incoming signal that will cause 1 dB of gain compression

20. - E4E05

How can radio frequency interference from an AC motor be suppressed?

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

21. - E5A13

What is an effect of increasing Q in a series resonant circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Internal voltages increase
B	Phase shift can become uncontrolled
C	Parasitic effects are minimized
D	Fewer components are needed for the same performance

22. - E5B07

What is the phase angle between the voltage across and the current through a series RLC circuit if XC is 500 ohms, R is 1 kilohm, and XL is 250 ohms?

Select	Answer
A	14.0 degrees with the voltage leading the current
B	68.2 degrees with the voltage leading the current
C	68.2 degrees with the voltage lagging the current
D	14.0 degrees with the voltage lagging the current

23. - E5C10

Which point on Figure E5-1 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 6
B	Point 5
C	Point 2
D	Point 4

24. - E5D13

How many watts are consumed in a circuit consisting of a 100-ohm resistor in series with a 100-ohm inductive reactance drawing 1 ampere?

Select	Answer
A	100 watts
B	141.4 watts
C	70.7 watts
D	200 watts

25. - E6A01

In what application is gallium arsenide used as a semiconductor material?

Select	Answer
A	In high-power audio circuits
B	In very low-frequency RF circuits
C	In microwave circuits
D	In high-current rectifier circuits

26. - E6B11

What is used to control the attenuation of RF signals by a PIN diode?

Select	Answer
A	Reverse voltage larger than the RF signal
B	Forward DC bias current
C	Capacitance of an RF coupling capacitor
D	A sub-harmonic pump signal

27. - E6C01

What is the function of hysteresis in a comparator?

Select	Answer
A	To cause the output to change states continually
B	To increase the sensitivity
C	To allow the comparator to be used with AC input signals
D	To prevent input noise from causing unstable output signals

28. - E6D05

What is one reason for using ferrite cores rather than powdered iron in an inductor?

Select	Answer
A	Ferrite toroids generally require fewer turns to produce a given inductance value
B	Ferrite toroids generally have better temperature stability
C	Ferrite toroids generally have lower initial permeability
D	Ferrite toroids are easier to use with surface mount technology

29. - E6E05

Which of the following noise figure values is typical of a low-noise UHF preamplifier?

Select	Answer
A	44 dBm
B	-10 dB
C	-20 dBm
D	2 dB

30. - E6F06

Which of these materials is most commonly used to create photoconductive devices?

Select	Answer
A	A heavy metal
B	A liquid semiconductor
C	A crystalline semiconductor
D	An ordinary metal

31. - E7A08

What logical operation does an OR gate perform?

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

32. - E7B15

What is one way to prevent thermal runaway in a bipolar transistor amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	Select transistors with high beta
B	Use a resistor in series with the emitter
C	Neutralization
D	All these choices are correct

33. - E7C06

What are the distinguishing features of an elliptical filter?

Select	Answer
A	Extremely sharp cutoff with one or more notches in the stop band
B	Gradual passband rolloff with extreme stop band ripple
C	Extremely flat response over its pass band with gradually rounded stop band corners
D	Gradual passband rolloff with minimal stop band ripple

34. - E7D11

What is the function of the pass transistor in a linear voltage regulator circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Provides a stable input impedance over a wide range of source voltage
B	Maintains nearly constant output voltage over a wide range of load current
C	Permits a wide range of output voltage settings
D	Maintains nearly constant output impedance over a wide range of load current

35. - E7E05

What circuit is added to an FM transmitter to boost the higher audio frequencies?

Select	Answer
A	A pre-emphasis network
B	A de-emphasis network
C	A heterodyne suppressor
D	A heterodyne enhancer

36. - E7F08

What is the function of decimation?

Select	Answer
A	Removing unnecessary significant digits
B	Attenuating the signal
C	Converting data to binary code decimal form
D	Reducing the effective sample rate by removing samples

37. - E7G02

What is ringing in a filter?

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

38. - E7H13

Which of the following is a technique for providing highly accurate and stable oscillators needed for microwave transmission and reception?

Select	Answer
A	Use a rubidium stabilized reference oscillator
B	Use a temperature-controlled high Q dielectric resonator
C	Use a GPS signal reference
D	All these choices are correct

39. - E8A04

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

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

40. - E8B05

What is the deviation ratio of an FM-phone signal having a maximum frequency swing of plus-or-minus 5 kHz when the maximum modulation frequency is 3 kHz?

Select	Answer
A	0.6
B	1.67
C	0.167
D	60

41. - E8C02

What is the definition of symbol rate in a digital transmission?

Select	Answer
A	The duration of each bit in a message sent over the air
B	The rate at which the waveform changes to convey information
C	The number of characters carried per second by the station-to-station link
D	The number of control characters in a message packet

42. - E8D05

What is the most common method of reducing key clicks?

Select	Answer
A	Low-pass filters at the transmitter output
B	Reduce keying waveform rise and fall times
C	Increase keying waveform rise and fall times
D	High-pass filters at the transmitter output

43. - E9A08

What is antenna bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	Antenna length divided by the number of elements
B	The frequency range over which an antenna satisfies a performance requirement
C	The angle between the half-power radiation points
D	The angle formed between two imaginary lines drawn through the element ends

44. - E9B05

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

Select	Answer
A	Azimuth
B	Polarization
C	Elevation
D	Radiation resistance

45. - E9C14

How does the performance of a horizontally polarized antenna mounted on the side of a hill compare with the same antenna mounted on flat ground?

Select	Answer
A	The main lobe takeoff angle decreases in the downhill direction
B	The horizontal beamwidth increases in the uphill direction
C	The main lobe takeoff angle increases in the downhill direction
D	The horizontal beamwidth decreases in the downhill direction

46. - E9D09

What is the function of a loading coil used as part of an HF mobile antenna?

Select	Answer
A	To lower the Q
B	To increase the SWR bandwidth
C	To lower the losses
D	To cancel capacitive reactance

47. - E9E11

What is the primary purpose of phasing lines when used with an antenna having multiple driven elements?

Select	Answer
A	It allows single-band antennas to operate on other bands
B	It ensures that each driven element operates in concert with the others to create the desired antenna pattern
C	It creates a low-angle radiation pattern
D	It prevents reflected power from traveling back down the feed line and causing harmonic radiation from the transmitter

48. - E9F06

What is the approximate physical length of an air-insulated, parallel conductor transmission line that is electrically 1/2 wavelength long at 14.10 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	8.5 meters
B	10.6 meters
C	7.0 meters
D	13.3 meters

49. - E9G11

How are the wavelength scales on a Smith chart calibrated?

Select	Answer
A	In fractions of antenna electrical wavelength
B	In fractions of transmission line electrical frequency
C	In fractions of transmission line electrical wavelength
D	In fractions of antenna electrical frequency

50. - E9H04

What is an advantage of placing a grounded electrostatic shield around a small loop direction-finding antenna?

Select	Answer
A	It eliminates unbalanced capacitive coupling to the surroundings, improving the nulls
B	It increases signal strength by providing a better match to the feed line
C	It adds capacitive loading, increasing the bandwidth of the antenna
D	It eliminates tracking errors caused by strong out-of-band signals

Figure E5-1

Figure E9-2