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

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

2. - E1A07

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

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

3. - E1B05

What is the National Radio Quiet Zone?

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

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	Operations may commence immediately, and may continue unless interference is reported by the UTC
B	Operators may not operate until a test signal has been transmitted in coordination with the local power company
C	Operators must not operate until approval is received
D	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

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

6. - E1E09

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

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

7. - E1F03

Under what circumstances may a dealer sell an external RF power amplifier capable of operation below 144 MHz if it has not been granted FCC certification?

Select	Answer
A	The equipment dealer assembled it from a kit
B	It was purchased in used condition from an amateur operator and is sold to another amateur operator for use at that operator's station
C	It was imported from a manufacturer in another country and was certificated by that country's government
D	It was imported from a manufacturer in a country that does not require certification of RF power amplifiers

8. - E2A05

What do the letters in a satellite's mode designator specify?

Select	Answer
A	Power limits for uplink and downlink transmissions
B	The location of the ground control station
C	The polarization of uplink and downlink signals
D	The uplink and downlink frequency ranges

9. - E2B05

Which of the following describes the use of vestigial sideband in analog fast-scan TV transmissions?

Select	Answer
A	The vestigial sideband contains chroma information
B	Vestigial sideband reduces bandwidth while allowing for simple video detector circuitry
C	The vestigial sideband carries the audio information
D	Vestigial sideband provides high frequency emphasis to sharpen the picture

10. - E2C12

What technique do individual nodes use to form a mesh network?

Select	Answer
A	Custom code plugs for the local trunking systems
B	Forward error correction and Viterbi codes
C	Discovery and link establishment protocols
D	Acting as store-and-forward digipeaters

11. - E2D04

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

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

12. - E2E13

Which of these digital modes has the fastest data throughput under clear communication conditions?

Select	Answer
A	AMTOR
B	PSK31
C	300 baud packet
D	170 Hz shift, 45 baud RTTY

13. - E3A04

What do Hepburn maps predict?

Select	Answer
A	Likelihood of rain scatter along cold or warm fronts
B	Sporadic E propagation
C	Locations of auroral reflecting zones
D	Probability of tropospheric propagation

14. - E3B11

At what time of day can sporadic E propagation occur?

Select	Answer
A	Only in hours of darkness
B	Only around sunset and sunrise
C	Only around sunset
D	Any time

15. - E3C10

What does the 304A solar parameter measure?

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

16. - E4A02

Which of the following parameters does a spectrum analyzer display on the vertical and horizontal axes?

Select	Answer
A	RF amplitude and frequency
B	RF amplitude and time
C	SWR and frequency
D	SWR and time

17. - E4B01

Which of the following factors most affects the accuracy of a frequency counter?

Select	Answer
A	Time base accuracy
B	Input attenuator accuracy
C	Temperature coefficient of the logic
D	Decade divider accuracy

18. - E4C05

What does a receiver noise floor of -174 dBm represent?

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

19. - E4D11

Why are odd-order intermodulation products, created within a receiver, of particular interest compared to other products?

Select	Answer
A	Odd-order products overload the IF filters
B	Odd-order products of two signals in the band of interest are also likely to be within the band
C	Odd-order intermodulation produces three products for every input signal within the band of interest
D	Odd-order products are an indication of poor image rejection

20. - E4E06

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

Select	Answer
A	A whining type noise that continually pulses off and on
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 clicking noise at intervals of a few seconds

21. - E5A08

What is the phase relationship between the current through and the voltage across a series resonant circuit at resonance?

Select	Answer
A	The voltage leads the current by 90 degrees
B	The voltage and current are 180 degrees out of phase
C	The current leads the voltage by 90 degrees
D	The voltage and current are in phase

22. - E5B10

What is the relationship between the AC current through an inductor and the voltage across an inductor?

Select	Answer
A	Voltage and current are in phase
B	Voltage leads current by 90 degrees
C	Voltage and current are 180 degrees out of phase
D	Current leads voltage by 90 degrees

23. - E5C09

When using rectangular coordinates to graph the impedance of a circuit, what do the axes represent?

Select	Answer
A	The X axis represents the magnitude and the Y axis represents the phase angle
B	The X axis represents the resistive component and the Y axis represents the reactive component
C	The X axis represents the phase angle and the Y axis represents the magnitude
D	The X axis represents the reactive component and the Y axis represents the resistive component

24. - E5D15

What is the power factor of an RL circuit having a 45-degree phase angle between the voltage and the current?

Select	Answer
A	0.866
B	0.707
C	1.0
D	0.5

25. - E6A05

How does DC input impedance at the gate of a field-effect transistor compare with the DC input impedance of a bipolar transistor?

Select	Answer
A	An FET has higher input impedance
B	They are both low impedance
C	They are both high impedance
D	An FET has lower input impedance

26. - E6B04

What type of semiconductor device is designed for use as a voltage-controlled capacitor?

Select	Answer
A	Tunnel diode
B	Silicon-controlled rectifier
C	Varactor diode
D	Zener diode

27. - E6C11

In Figure E6-3, what is the schematic symbol for the NOT operation (inverter)?

Select	Answer
A	6
B	4
C	5
D	2

28. - E6D07

What is current in the primary winding of a transformer called if no load is attached to the secondary?

Select	Answer
A	Magnetizing current
B	Stabilizing current
C	Direct current
D	Excitation current

29. - E6E12

Why are DIP through-hole package ICs not typically used at UHF and higher frequencies?

Select	Answer
A	Excessive lead length
B	Epoxy coating is conductive above 300 MHz
C	Unsuitable for combining analog and digital signals
D	Too many pins

30. - E6F03

What is the most common configuration of an optoisolator or optocoupler?

Select	Answer
A	A frequency modulated helium-neon laser
B	An LED and a phototransistor
C	An amplitude modulated helium-neon laser
D	A lens and a photomultiplier

31. - E7A05

Which of the following is a circuit that continuously alternates between two states without an external clock?

Select	Answer
A	Monostable multivibrator
B	J-K flip-flop
C	Astable multivibrator
D	T flip-flop

32. - E7B13

Which of the following describes an emitter follower (or common collector) amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	An OR circuit with only one emitter used for output
B	An amplifier with a low impedance output that follows the base input voltage
C	A two-transistor amplifier with the emitters sharing a common bias resistor
D	A differential amplifier with both inputs fed to the emitter of the input transistor

33. - E7C07

Which describes a Pi-L-network used for matching a vacuum tube final amplifier to a 50-ohm unbalanced output?

Select	Answer
A	A Pi-network with an additional series inductor on the output
B	A Phase Inverter Load network
C	A matching network in which all components are isolated from ground
D	A network with only three discrete parts

34. - E7D13

What is the equation for calculating power dissipated by a series linear voltage regulator?

Select	Answer
A	Input voltage divided by output current
B	Input voltage multiplied by input current
C	Voltage difference from input to output multiplied by output current
D	Output voltage multiplied by output current

35. - E7E02

What is the function of a reactance modulator?

Select	Answer
A	To produce PM signals by using an electrically variable resistance
B	To produce PM or FM signals by using an electrically variable inductance or capacitance
C	To produce AM signals by using an electrically variable inductance or capacitance
D	To produce AM signals by using an electrically variable resistance

36. - E7F01

What is meant by direct digital conversion as applied to software defined radios?

Select	Answer
A	A switching mixer is used to generate I and Q signals directly from the RF input
B	Incoming RF is converted to a control voltage for a voltage controlled oscillator
C	Software is converted from source code to object code during operation of the receiver
D	Incoming RF is digitized by an analog-to-digital converter without being mixed with a local oscillator signal

37. - E7G03

What is the typical input impedance of an op-amp?

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

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

39. - E8A03

What type of wave does a Fourier analysis show to be made up of sine waves of a given fundamental frequency plus all its harmonics?

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

40. - E8B03

What is the modulation index of an FM-phone signal having a maximum frequency deviation of 3000 Hz either side of the carrier frequency when the modulating frequency is 1000 Hz?

Select	Answer
A	3000
B	1000
C	3
D	0.3

41. - E8C06

What is the bandwidth of a 170-hertz shift, 300-baud ASCII transmission?

Select	Answer
A	0.3 kHz
B	0.5 kHz
C	0.1 Hz
D	1.0 kHz

42. - E8D02

What spread spectrum communications technique uses a high-speed binary bit stream to shift the phase of an RF carrier?

Select	Answer
A	Binary phase-shift keying
B	Phase compandored spread spectrum
C	Direct sequence
D	Frequency hopping

43. - E9A07

What is the effective isotropic radiated power of a repeater station with 200 watts transmitter power output, 2 dB feed line loss, 2.8 dB duplexer loss, 1.2 dB circulator loss, and 7 dBi antenna gain?

Select	Answer
A	252 watts
B	159 watts
C	63.2 watts
D	632 watts

44. - E9B03

In the antenna radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-1, what is the front-to-side ratio?

Select	Answer
A	14 dB
B	18 dB
C	24 dB
D	12 dB

45. - E9C04

What happens to the radiation pattern of an unterminated long wire antenna as the wire length is increased?

Select	Answer
A	The lobes become more perpendicular to the wire
B	The lobes align more in the direction of the wire
C	The front-to-back ratio decreases
D	The vertical angle increases

46. - E9D07

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

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

47. - E9E10

Which of these choices is an effective way to match an antenna with a 100-ohm feed point impedance to a 50-ohm coaxial cable feed line?

Select	Answer
A	Insert a 1/2 wavelength piece of 300-ohm twinlead in series between the antenna terminals and the 50-ohm feed cable
B	Connect a 1/4-wavelength open stub of 300-ohm twinlead in parallel with the coaxial feed line where it connects to the antenna
C	Connect a 1/2 wavelength shorted stub of 75-ohm cable in parallel with the 50-ohm cable where it attaches to the antenna
D	Insert a 1/4-wavelength piece of 75-ohm coaxial cable transmission line in series between the antenna terminals and the 50-ohm feed cable

48. - E9F03

Why is the physical length of a coaxial cable transmission line shorter than its electrical length?

Select	Answer
A	Skin effect is less pronounced in the coaxial cable
B	The characteristic impedance is higher in a parallel feed line
C	The surge impedance is higher in a parallel feed line
D	Electrical signals move more slowly in a coaxial cable than in air

49. - E9G10

What do the arcs on a Smith chart represent?

Select	Answer
A	Points with constant reactance
B	SWR
C	Frequency
D	Points with constant resistance

50. - E9H03

What is Receiving Directivity Factor (RDF)?

Select	Answer
A	Relative directivity compared to isotropic
B	Forward gain compared to average gain over the entire hemisphere
C	Relative directivity compared to a dipole
D	Forward gain compared to the gain in the reverse direction

Figure E6-3

Figure E9-1