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

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1. - E0A08

What does SAR measure?

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

2. - E1A07

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

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

3. - E1B04

What must be done before placing an amateur station within an officially designated wilderness area or wildlife preserve, or an area listed in the National Register of Historic Places?

Select	Answer
A	An Environmental Assessment must be submitted to the FCC
B	A proposal must be submitted to the National Park Service
C	A form FSD-15 must be submitted to the Department of the Interior
D	A letter of intent must be filed with the Environmental Protection Agency

4. - E1C06

Which of the following is required in order to operate in accordance with CEPT rules in foreign countries where permitted?

Select	Answer
A	You must append "/CEPT" to your call sign
B	You must identify in the official language of the country in which you are operating
C	You must bring a copy of FCC Public Notice DA 16-1048
D	The U.S. embassy must approve of your operation

5. - E1D06

What is the maximum permitted transmitter output power when operating a model craft by telecommand?

Select	Answer
A	2 watts
B	100 watts
C	5 watts
D	1 watt

6. - E1E11

What must the VE team do if an examinee scores a passing grade on all examination elements needed for an upgrade or new license?

Select	Answer
A	Three VEs must certify that the examinee is qualified for the license grant and that they have complied with the administering VE requirements
B	Issue the examinee the new or upgrade license
C	All these choices are correct
D	Photocopy all examination documents and forward them to the FCC for processing

7. - E1F05

Amateur stations may not transmit in which of the following frequency segments if they are located in the contiguous 48 states and north of Line A?

Select	Answer
A	53 MHz - 54 MHz
B	420 MHz - 430 MHz
C	222 MHz - 223 MHz
D	440 MHz - 450 MHz

8. - E2A07

Which of the following types of signals can be relayed through a linear transponder?

Select	Answer
A	FM and CW
B	PSK and packet
C	All these choices are correct
D	SSB and SSTV

9. - E2B12

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

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

10. - E2C12

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

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

11. - E2D03

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

Select	Answer
A	Olivia
B	MSK144
C	JT65
D	PACTOR III

12. - E2E09

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

Select	Answer
A	RTTY
B	PSK31
C	MT63
D	PACTOR

13. - E3A13

Which of these emission modes is best for auroral propagation?

Select	Answer
A	FM
B	CW
C	SSB
D	RTTY

14. - E3B05

Which amateur bands typically support long-path propagation?

Select	Answer
A	160 meters to 10 meters
B	6 meters to 2 meters
C	Only 30 meters to 10 meters
D	Only 160 meters to 40 meters

15. - 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	Southward
D	Westward

16. - E4A07

Which of the following is an advantage of using an antenna analyzer compared to an SWR bridge to measure antenna SWR?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	Antenna analyzers display a time-varying representation of the modulation envelope
C	Antenna analyzers automatically tune your antenna for resonance
D	Antenna analyzers do not need an external RF source

17. - E4B03

Which S parameter is equivalent to forward gain?

Select	Answer
A	S21
B	S11
C	S12
D	S22

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 theoretical noise in a 1 Hz bandwidth at the input of a perfect receiver at room temperature
C	The galactic noise contribution to minimum detectable signal
D	The noise figure of a 1 Hz bandwidth receiver

19. - E4D12

What is the term for the reduction in receiver sensitivity caused by a strong signal near the received frequency?

Select	Answer
A	Cross-modulation interference
B	Desensitization
C	Squelch gain rollback
D	Quieting

20. - E4E08

What current flows equally on all conductors of an unshielded multi-conductor cable?

Select	Answer
A	Reactive current only
B	Differential-mode current
C	Return current
D	Common-mode current

21. - E5A07

What is the magnitude of the current at the input of a parallel RLC circuit at resonance?

Select	Answer
A	L/R
B	R/L
C	Minimum
D	Maximum

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

23. - E5C12

Which point on Figure E5-1 best represents the impedance of a series circuit consisting of a 300-ohm resistor and a 19-picofarad capacitor at 21.200 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	Point 1
B	Point 3
C	Point 7
D	Point 8

24. - E5D02

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

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

25. - E6A06

What is the beta of a bipolar junction transistor?

Select	Answer
A	The breakdown voltage of the base to collector junction
B	The frequency at which the current gain is reduced to 0.707
C	The switching speed
D	The change in collector current with respect to base current

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	Low junction capacitance
D	Ability to dissipate large amounts of power

27. - E6C09

What is a Programmable Logic Device (PLD)?

Select	Answer
A	A logic circuit that can be modified during use
B	A type of transistor whose gain can be changed by digital logic circuits
C	A programmable collection of logic gates and circuits in a single integrated circuit
D	Programmable equipment used for testing digital logic integrated circuits

28. - E6D11

Which type of core material decreases inductance when inserted into a coil?

Select	Answer
A	Powdered iron
B	Brass
C	Ferrite
D	Ceramic

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	2 dB
D	-20 dBm

30. - E6F09

What is the efficiency of a photovoltaic cell?

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

31. - E7A01

Which circuit is bistable?

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

32. - E7B13

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

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

33. - E7C04

How does an impedance-matching circuit transform a complex impedance to a resistive impedance?

Select	Answer
A	It introduces negative resistance to cancel the resistive part of impedance
B	It cancels the reactive part of the impedance and changes the resistive part to a desired value
C	It introduces transconductance to cancel the reactive part of impedance
D	Reactive currents are dissipated in matched resistances

34. - E7D05

Which of the following types of linear voltage regulator places a constant load on the unregulated voltage source?

Select	Answer
A	A constant current source
B	A series regulator
C	A shunt current source
D	A shunt regulator

35. - E7E03

What is a frequency discriminator stage in a FM receiver?

Select	Answer
A	A circuit for filtering two closely adjacent signals
B	An FM generator circuit
C	An automatic band-switching circuit
D	A circuit for detecting FM signals

36. - E7F01

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

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

37. - E7G05

How can unwanted ringing and audio instability be prevented in an op-amp RC audio filter circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Restrict both gain and Q
B	Increase both gain and Q
C	Restrict gain but increase Q
D	Restrict Q but increase gain

38. - E7H10

What information is contained in the lookup table of a direct digital synthesizer (DDS)?

Select	Answer
A	The phase relationship between a reference oscillator and the output waveform
B	Frequently used receiver and transmitter frequencies
C	Amplitude values that represent the desired waveform
D	The phase relationship between a voltage-controlled oscillator and the output waveform

39. - E8A08

Why would a direct or flash conversion analog-to-digital converter be useful for a software defined radio?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	Very high speed allows digitizing high frequencies
C	Immunity to out-of-sequence coding reduces spurious responses
D	Very low power consumption decreases frequency drift

40. - E8B02

How does the modulation index of a phase-modulated emission vary with RF carrier frequency?

Select	Answer
A	It does not depend on the RF carrier frequency
B	It varies with the square root of the RF carrier frequency
C	It increases as the RF carrier frequency increases
D	It decreases as the RF carrier frequency increases

41. - E8C07

What is the bandwidth of a 4800-Hz frequency shift, 9600-baud ASCII FM transmission?

Select	Answer
A	15.36 kHz
B	4.8 kHz
C	9.6 kHz
D	5.76 kHz

42. - E8D09

What is considered an acceptable maximum IMD level for an idling PSK signal?

Select	Answer
A	-20 dB
B	+10 dB
C	+15 dB
D	-30 dB

43. - E9A06

What is the effective radiated power relative to a dipole of a repeater station with 200 watts transmitter power output, 4 dB feed line loss, 3.2 dB duplexer loss, 0.8 dB circulator loss, and 10 dBd antenna gain?

Select	Answer
A	2000 watts
B	126 watts
C	317 watts
D	300 watts

44. - E9B05

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

Select	Answer
A	Radiation resistance
B	Elevation
C	Polarization
D	Azimuth

45. - E9C13

How does the radiation pattern of a horizontally polarized 3-element beam antenna vary with increasing height above ground?

Select	Answer
A	The horizontal beamwidth decreases
B	The takeoff angle of the lowest elevation lobe decreases
C	The takeoff angle of the lowest elevation lobe increases
D	The horizontal beamwidth increases

46. - E9D03

Where should a high Q loading coil be placed to minimize losses in a shortened vertical antenna?

Select	Answer
A	As close to the transmitter as possible
B	As low as possible on the vertical radiator
C	At a voltage node
D	Near the center of the vertical radiator

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	Connect a 1/4-wavelength open stub of 300-ohm twinlead in parallel with the coaxial feed line where it connects to the antenna
B	Insert a 1/2 wavelength piece of 300-ohm twinlead in series between the antenna terminals and the 50-ohm feed cable
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. - E9F02

Which of the following has the biggest effect on the velocity factor of a transmission line?

Select	Answer
A	The termination impedance
B	The center conductor resistivity
C	The line length
D	Dielectric materials used in the line

49. - E9G04

What are the two families of circles and arcs that make up a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Reactance and voltage
B	Resistance and voltage
C	Resistance and reactance
D	Voltage and impedance

50. - E9H09

What is a Pennant antenna?

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

Figure E5-1

Figure E9-2