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

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1. - E0A10

What toxic material may be present in some electronic components such as high voltage capacitors and transformers?

Select	Answer
A	Polyethylene
B	Polychlorinated biphenyls
C	Polymorphic silicon
D	Polytetrafluoroethylene

2. - E1A08

If a station in a message forwarding system inadvertently forwards a message that is in violation of FCC rules, who is primarily accountable for the rules violation?

Select	Answer
A	The control operators of all the stations in the system not authenticating the source from which they accept communications
B	The control operator of the packet bulletin board station
C	The control operators of all the stations in the system
D	The control operator of the originating station

3. - E1B07

To what type of regulations does PRB-1 apply?

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

4. - E1C08

What is the maximum permissible duration of a remotely controlled station's transmissions if its control link malfunctions?

Select	Answer
A	3 minutes
B	30 seconds
C	5 minutes
D	10 minutes

5. - E1D09

Which UHF amateur bands have frequencies authorized for space stations?

Select	Answer
A	70 cm and 33 cm
B	33 cm and 13 cm
C	70 cm only
D	70 cm and 13 cm

6. - E1E12

What must the VE team do with the application form if the examinee does not pass the exam?

Select	Answer
A	Send the application form to the FCC and inform the FCC of the grade
B	Destroy the application form
C	Maintain the application form with the VEC's records
D	Return the application document to the examinee

7. - E1F02

What privileges are authorized in the U.S. to persons holding an amateur service license granted by the government of Canada?

Select	Answer
A	Full privileges, up to and including those of the Amateur Extra Class license, on the 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meter bands
B	None, they must obtain a U.S. license
C	All privileges of the Amateur Extra Class license
D	The operating terms and conditions of the Canadian amateur service license, not to exceed U.S. Amateur Extra Class license privileges

8. - E2A05

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

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

9. - E2B02

How many horizontal lines make up a fast-scan (NTSC) television frame?

Select	Answer
A	60
B	30
C	525
D	1080

10. - E2C02

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

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

11. - E2D04

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

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

12. - E2E08

Which of the following HF digital modes can be used to transfer binary files?

Select	Answer
A	PACTOR
B	Hellschreiber
C	RTTY
D	AMTOR

13. - E3A01

What is the approximate maximum separation measured along the surface of the Earth between two stations communicating by EME?

Select	Answer
A	5000 miles, if the moon is at perigee
B	12,000 miles, if the moon is visible by both stations
C	2000 miles, if the moon is at apogee
D	500 miles, if the moon is at perigee

14. - E3B01

What is transequatorial propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Propagation between points located on the magnetic equator
B	Propagation between a point on the equator and its antipodal point
C	Propagation between two mid-latitude points at approximately the same distance north and south of the magnetic equator
D	Propagation between points at the same latitude

15. - E3C11

What does VOACAP software model?

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

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

17. - E4B03

Which S parameter is equivalent to forward gain?

Select	Answer
A	S11
B	S12
C	S21
D	S22

18. - E4C15

What is reciprocal mixing?

Select	Answer
A	Two out-of-band signals mixing to generate an in-band spurious signal
B	Local oscillator phase noise mixing with adjacent strong signals to create interference to desired signals
C	Two digital signals combining from alternate time slots
D	In-phase signals cancelling in a mixer resulting in loss of receiver sensitivity

19. - E4D11

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

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

20. - E4E08

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

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

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

22. - E5B06

What is susceptance?

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

23. - E5C11

Which point in Figure E5-1 best represents the impedance of a series circuit consisting of a 300-ohm resistor and an 18-microhenry inductor at 3.505 MHz?

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

24. - E5D14

What is reactive power?

Select	Answer
A	Wattless, nonproductive power
B	Power consumed in circuit Q
C	Power lost because of capacitor leakage
D	Power consumed in wire resistance in an inductor

25. - E6A12

Why do many MOSFET devices have internally connected Zener diodes on the gates?

Select	Answer
A	To keep the gate voltage within specifications and prevent the device from overheating
B	To reduce the chance of static damage to the gate
C	To provide a voltage reference for the correct amount of reverse-bias gate voltage
D	To protect the substrate from excessive voltages

26. - E6B10

In Figure E6-2, what is the schematic symbol for a light-emitting diode?

Select	Answer
A	6
B	1
C	5
D	7

27. - E6C08

In Figure E6-3, what is the schematic symbol for a NAND gate?

Select	Answer
A	4
B	1
C	3
D	2

28. - E6D08

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

Select	Answer
A	Powdered-iron cores generally maintain their characteristics at higher currents
B	Powdered-iron cores generally require fewer turns to produce a given inductance
C	Powdered-iron cores use smaller diameter wire for the same inductance
D	Powdered-iron cores generally have greater initial permeability

29. - E6E04

Which is the most common input and output impedance of circuits that use MMICs?

Select	Answer
A	450 ohms
B	50 ohms
C	10 ohms
D	300 ohms

30. - E6F07

What is a solid-state relay?

Select	Answer
A	A relay using transistors to drive the relay coil
B	A semiconductor passive delay line
C	A mechanical relay that latches in the on or off state each time it is pulsed
D	A device that uses semiconductors to implement the functions of an electromechanical relay

31. - E7A02

What is the function of a decade counter?

Select	Answer
A	It decodes a decimal number for display on a seven-segment LED display
B	It produces 10 output pulses for every input pulse
C	It produces one output pulse for every 10 input pulses
D	It decodes a binary number for display on a seven-segment LED display

32. - E7B08

How can an RF power amplifier be neutralized?

Select	Answer
A	By increasing the driving power
B	By feeding an in-phase component of the output back to the input
C	By reducing the driving power
D	By feeding a 180-degree out-of-phase portion of the output back to the input

33. - E7C03

What advantage does a series-L Pi-L-network have over a series-L Pi-network for impedance matching between the final amplifier of a vacuum-tube transmitter and an antenna?

Select	Answer
A	Greater transformation range
B	Does not require a capacitor
C	Greater harmonic suppression
D	Higher efficiency

34. - E7D01

How does a linear electronic voltage regulator work?

Select	Answer
A	It has a ramp voltage as its output
B	It eliminates the need for a pass transistor
C	The conduction of a control element is varied to maintain a constant output voltage
D	The control element duty cycle is proportional to the line or load conditions

35. - E7E05

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

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

36. - E7F02

What kind of digital signal processing audio filter is used to remove unwanted noise from a received SSB signal?

Select	Answer
A	A crystal-lattice filter
B	An adaptive filter
C	A phase-inverting filter
D	A Hilbert-transform filter

37. - E7G11

What absolute voltage gain can be expected from the circuit in Figure E7-3 when R1 is 3300 ohms and RF is 47 kilohms?

Select	Answer
A	0.07
B	28
C	7
D	14

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

39. - E8A10

What is the purpose of a low-pass filter used in conjunction with a digital-to-analog converter?

Select	Answer
A	Lower the input bandwidth to increase the effective resolution
B	Improve accuracy by removing out-of-sequence codes from the input
C	Remove harmonics from the output caused by the discrete analog levels generated
D	All these choices are correct

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 signals are quadrature modulated to increase bandwidth efficiency
C	Two or more data streams are assigned to discrete sub-carriers on an FM transmitter
D	Two or more signals are arranged to share discrete time slots of a data transmission

41. - E8C02

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

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

42. - E8D11

What is one advantage of using ASCII code for data communications?

Select	Answer
A	It includes built-in error correction features
B	It contains fewer information bits per character than any other code
C	It is possible to transmit both upper and lower case text
D	It uses one character as a shift code to send numeric and special characters

43. - E9A02

What is the effective radiated power relative to a dipole of a repeater station with 150 watts transmitter power output, 2 dB feed line loss, 2.2 dB duplexer loss, and 7 dBd antenna gain?

Select	Answer
A	1977 watts
B	420 watts
C	286 watts
D	78.7 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	12 dB
C	24 dB
D	18 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 vertical angle increases
B	The lobes align more in the direction of the wire
C	The lobes become more perpendicular to the wire
D	The front-to-back ratio decreases

46. - E9D08

What happens as the Q of an antenna increases?

Select	Answer
A	SWR bandwidth increases
B	Gain is reduced
C	More common-mode current is present on the feed line
D	SWR bandwidth decreases

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. - E9F02

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

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

49. - E9G05

Which of the following is a common use for a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Determine the length and position of an impedance matching stub
B	Determine the impedance of a transmission line, given the physical dimensions
C	Determine the loss/100 feet of a transmission line, given the velocity factor and conductor materials
D	Determine the gain of an antenna given the physical and electrical parameters

50. - E9H08

What is the function of a sense antenna?

Select	Answer
A	It increases the sensitivity of a DF antenna array
B	It allows DF antennas to receive signals at different vertical angles
C	It provides diversity reception that cancels multipath signals
D	It modifies the pattern of a DF antenna array to provide a null in one direction

Figure E5-1

Figure E6-2

Figure E6-3

Figure E7-3

Figure E9-1