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	Uranium Hexafluoride
B	Zinc oxide
C	Beryllium Oxide
D	Mica

2. - E1A13

Who must be in physical control of the station apparatus of an amateur station aboard any vessel or craft that is documented or registered in the United States?

Select	Answer
A	Only a person named in an amateur station license grant
B	Any person named in an amateur station license grant or a person holding an unrestricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit
C	Any person holding an FCC issued amateur license or who is authorized for alien reciprocal operation
D	Only a person with an FCC Marine Radio license grant

3. - E1B09

Which amateur stations may be operated under RACES rules?

Select	Answer
A	Only those club stations licensed to Amateur Extra Class operators
B	Any FCC-licensed amateur station except a Technician Class
C	Any FCC-licensed amateur station certified by the responsible civil defense organization for the area served
D	Any FCC-licensed amateur station participating in the Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS)

4. - E1C13

What notifications must be given before transmitting on the 630 meter or 2200 meter bands?

Select	Answer
A	Operators must inform the Utilities Technology Council (UTC) of their call sign and coordinates of the station
B	An environmental impact statement must be filed with the Department of the Interior
C	A special endorsement must be requested from the FCC
D	Operators must inform the FAA of their intent to operate, giving their call sign and distance to the nearest runway

5. - E1D03

What is a space telecommand station?

Select	Answer
A	An amateur station that transmits communications to initiate, modify or terminate functions of a space station
B	An amateur station that receives telemetry from a satellite or balloon more than 50 kilometers above the surface of the Earth
C	An amateur station located on the surface of the Earth for communication with other Earth stations by means of Earth satellites
D	An amateur station located in a satellite or a balloon more than 50 kilometers above the surface of the Earth

6. - E1E08

To which of the following examinees may a VE not administer an examination?

Select	Answer
A	Relatives of the VE as listed in the FCC rules
B	Employees of the VE
C	All these choices are correct
D	Friends of the VE

7. - E1F10

Who may be the control operator of an auxiliary station?

Select	Answer
A	Only Amateur Extra Class operators
B	Any licensed amateur operator
C	Only Technician, General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators
D	Only General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators

8. - E2A11

What type of antenna can be used to minimize the effects of spin modulation and Faraday rotation?

Select	Answer
A	An isotropic antenna
B	A linearly polarized antenna
C	A log-periodic dipole array
D	A circularly polarized antenna

9. - E2B07

What is the name of the signal component that carries color information in NTSC video?

Select	Answer
A	Spectral intensity
B	Chroma
C	Hue
D	Luminance

10. - E2C10

Why might a DX station state that they are listening on another frequency?

Select	Answer
A	Because the DX station may be transmitting on a frequency that is prohibited to some responding stations
B	To separate the calling stations from the DX station
C	To improve operating efficiency by reducing interference
D	All these choices are correct

11. - E2D09

What type of modulation is used for JT65 contacts?

Select	Answer
A	PSK
B	RTTY
C	Multi-tone AFSK
D	IEEE 802.11

12. - E2E12

How do ALE stations establish contact?

Select	Answer
A	ALE radios send a constant tone code to establish a frequency for future use
B	ALE constantly scans a list of frequencies, activating the radio when the designated call sign is received
C	ALE radios monitor an internet site for the frequency they are being paged on
D	ALE radios activate when they hear their signal echoed by back scatter

13. - E3A08

When a meteor strikes the Earth's atmosphere, a cylindrical region of free electrons is formed at what layer of the ionosphere?

Select	Answer
A	The D layer
B	The F2 layer
C	The F1 layer
D	The E layer

14. - E3B06

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

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

15. - E3C04

What does the value of Bz (B sub Z) represent?

Select	Answer
A	Duration of long-delayed echoes
B	Critical frequency for vertical transmissions
C	Geomagnetic field stability
D	Direction and strength of the interplanetary magnetic field

16. - E4A11

How should an antenna analyzer be connected when measuring antenna resonance and feed point impedance?

Select	Answer
A	Loosely couple the analyzer near the antenna base
B	Connect the antenna feed line directly to the analyzer's connector
C	Loosely couple the antenna and a dummy load to the analyzer
D	Connect the analyzer via a high-impedance transformer to the antenna

17. - E4B03

Which S parameter is equivalent to forward gain?

Select	Answer
A	S11
B	S21
C	S12
D	S22

18. - E4C14

What transmit frequency might generate an image response signal in a receiver tuned to 14.300 MHz and that uses a 455 kHz IF frequency?

Select	Answer
A	14.755 MHz
B	15.210 MHz
C	13.845 MHz
D	14.445 MHz

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	Quieting
D	Squelch gain rollback

20. - E4E08

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

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

21. - E5A12

What is the half-power bandwidth of a resonant circuit that has a resonant frequency of 3.7 MHz and a Q of 118?

Select	Answer
A	218.3 kHz
B	15.7 kHz
C	436.6 kHz
D	31.4 kHz

22. - E5B12

What is admittance?

Select	Answer
A	The term for the gain of a field effect transistor
B	The turns ratio of a transformer
C	The inverse of impedance
D	The inverse of Q factor

23. - E5C08

What coordinate system is often used to display the phase angle of a circuit containing resistance, inductive and/or capacitive reactance?

Select	Answer
A	Polar coordinates
B	Maidenhead grid
C	Elliptical coordinates
D	Faraday grid

24. - E5D14

What is reactive power?

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

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 protect the substrate from excessive voltages
D	To provide a voltage reference for the correct amount of reverse-bias gate voltage

26. - E6B11

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

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

27. - E6C05

What is an advantage of CMOS logic devices over TTL devices?

Select	Answer
A	Differential output capability
B	Lower power consumption
C	Immune to damage from static discharge
D	Lower distortion

28. - E6D08

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

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

29. - E6E10

What advantage does surface-mount technology offer at RF compared to using through-hole components?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	Shorter circuit-board traces
C	Components have less parasitic inductance and capacitance
D	Smaller circuit area

30. - E6F01

What absorbs the energy from light falling on a photovoltaic cell?

Select	Answer
A	Photons
B	Protons
C	Electrons
D	Holes

31. - E7A04

How many flip-flops are required to divide a signal frequency by 4?

Select	Answer
A	1
B	2
C	4
D	8

32. - E7B03

Which of the following components form the output of a class D amplifier circuit?

Select	Answer
A	A temperature compensating load resistor to improve linearity
B	A matched load resistor to prevent damage by switching transients
C	A low-pass filter to remove switching signal components
D	A high-pass filter to compensate for low gain at low frequencies

33. - E7C12

What is one advantage of a Pi-matching network over an L-matching network consisting of a single inductor and a single capacitor?

Select	Answer
A	L-networks cannot perform impedance transformation
B	Pi-networks are more stable
C	The Q of Pi-networks can be controlled
D	Pi-networks provide balanced input and output

34. - E7D09

What is the main reason to use a charge controller with a solar power system?

Select	Answer
A	Control of electrolyte levels during battery discharge
B	Matching of day and night charge rates
C	Prevention of battery undercharge
D	Prevention of battery damage due to overcharge

35. - E7E08

What are the principal frequencies that appear at the output of a mixer circuit?

Select	Answer
A	The two input frequencies along with their sum and difference frequencies
B	1.414 and 0.707 times the input frequency
C	The square root of the product of input frequencies
D	Two and four times the original frequency

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

37. - E7G03

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

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

38. - E7H06

Which of the following oscillator circuits are commonly used in VFOs?

Select	Answer
A	Colpitts and Hartley
B	Negative feedback and balanced feedback
C	Pierce and Zener
D	Armstrong and deForest

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	All these choices are correct
C	Remove harmonics from the output caused by the discrete analog levels generated
D	Improve accuracy by removing out-of-sequence codes from the input

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	0.3
C	1000
D	3

41. - E8C03

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

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

42. - E8D10

What are some of the differences between the Baudot digital code and ASCII?

Select	Answer
A	Baudot uses 7 data bits per character, ASCII uses 8; Baudot has no letters/figures shift code, ASCII uses 2 letters/figures shift codes
B	Baudot uses 5 data bits per character, ASCII uses 7 or 8; Baudot uses 2 characters as letters/figures shift codes, ASCII has no letters/figures shift code
C	Baudot uses 6 data bits per character, ASCII uses 7 or 8; Baudot has no letters/figures shift code, ASCII uses 2 letters/figures shift codes
D	Baudot uses 4 data bits per character, ASCII uses 7 or 8; Baudot uses 1 character as a letters/figures shift code, ASCII has no letters/figures code

43. - E9A11

Which of the following factors determines ground losses for a ground-mounted vertical antenna operating in the 3 MHz to 30 MHz range?

Select	Answer
A	The standing wave ratio
B	Take-off angle
C	Distance from the transmitter
D	Soil conductivity

44. - E9B03

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

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

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

46. - E9D01

How much does the gain of an ideal parabolic dish antenna change when the operating frequency is doubled?

Select	Answer
A	3 dB
B	2 dB
C	6 dB
D	4 dB

47. - E9E06

Which of these feed line impedances would be suitable for constructing a quarter-wave Q-section for matching a 100-ohm loop to 50-ohm feed line?

Select	Answer
A	62 ohms
B	50 ohms
C	450 ohms
D	75 ohms

48. - E9F04

What impedance does a 1/2-wavelength transmission line present to a generator when the line is shorted at the far end?

Select	Answer
A	Very low impedance
B	The same as the characteristic impedance of the line
C	Very high impedance
D	The same as the output impedance of the generator

49. - E9G10

What do the arcs on a Smith chart represent?

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

50. - E9H04

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

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

Figure E9-1