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	Polytetrafluoroethylene
C	Polymorphic silicon
D	Polychlorinated biphenyls

2. - E1A04

With your transceiver displaying the carrier frequency of phone signals, you hear a DX station calling CQ on 3.601 MHz LSB. Is it legal to return the call using lower sideband on the same frequency?

Select	Answer
A	Yes, because the displayed frequency is within the 75 meter phone band segment
B	No, the sideband will extend beyond the edge of the phone band segment
C	Yes, because the DX station initiated the contact
D	No, U.S. stations are not permitted to use phone emissions below 3.610 MHz

3. - E1B02

Which of the following is an acceptable bandwidth for Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) based voice or SSTV digital transmissions made on the HF amateur bands?

Select	Answer
A	10 kHz
B	20 kHz
C	3 kHz
D	15 kHz

4. - E1C12

On what portion of the 630 meter band are phone emissions permitted?

Select	Answer
A	Only the top 3 kHz
B	Only the bottom 3 kHz
C	None
D	The entire band

5. - E1D11

Which amateur stations are eligible to operate as Earth stations?

Select	Answer
A	Only those of Amateur Extra Class operators
B	Any amateur station, subject to the privileges of the class of operator license held by the control operator
C	Only those of General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators
D	Any amateur station whose licensee has filed a pre-space notification with the FCC's International Bureau

6. - E1E01

For which types of out-of-pocket expenses do the Part 97 rules state that VEs and VECs may be reimbursed?

Select	Answer
A	Teaching an amateur operator license examination preparation course
B	No expenses are authorized for reimbursement
C	Providing amateur operator license examination preparation training materials
D	Preparing, processing, administering, and coordinating an examination for an amateur radio operator license

7. - E1F08

Which of the following types of amateur station communications are prohibited?

Select	Answer
A	Communications that have political content, except as allowed by the Fairness Doctrine
B	Communications transmitted for hire or material compensation, except as otherwise provided in the rules
C	Communications in a language other than English
D	Communications that have religious content

8. - E2A09

What do the terms L band and S band specify regarding satellite communications?

Select	Answer
A	The 23 centimeter and 13 centimeter bands
B	Which sideband to use
C	FM and Digital Store-and-Forward systems
D	The 2 meter and 70 centimeter bands

9. - E2B07

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

Select	Answer
A	Luminance
B	Chroma
C	Hue
D	Spectral intensity

10. - E2C08

Which of the following contacts may be confirmed through the U.S. QSL bureau system?

Select	Answer
A	Contacts between a U.S. station and a non-U.S. station
B	Contacts using tactical call signs
C	Repeater contacts between U.S. club members
D	Special event contacts between stations in the U.S.

11. - E2D04

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

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

12. - E2E07

Which of the following is a possible reason that attempts to initiate contact with a digital station on a clear frequency are unsuccessful?

Select	Answer
A	Another station you are unable to hear is using the frequency
B	Your transmit frequency is incorrect
C	All these choices are correct
D	The protocol version you are using is not supported by the digital station

13. - E3A04

What do Hepburn maps predict?

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

14. - E3B06

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

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

15. - E3C12

How does the maximum range of ground-wave propagation change when the signal frequency is increased?

Select	Answer
A	It peaks at roughly 14 MHz
B	It increases
C	It stays the same
D	It decreases

16. - E4A01

Which of the following limits the highest frequency signal that can be accurately displayed on a digital oscilloscope?

Select	Answer
A	Q of the circuit
B	Amount of memory
C	Sampling rate of the analog-to-digital converter
D	All these choices are correct

17. - E4B04

Which S parameter represents input port return loss or reflection coefficient (equivalent to VSWR)?

Select	Answer
A	S21
B	S11
C	S22
D	S12

18. - E4C04

What is the noise figure of a receiver?

Select	Answer
A	The ratio of thermal noise to atmospheric noise
B	The ratio of the noise bandwidth in hertz to the theoretical bandwidth of a resistive network
C	The ratio in dB of the noise generated by the receiver to the theoretical minimum 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 difference in dB between the noise floor and the third-order intercept point
B	The minimum difference in dB between the levels of two FM signals that will cause one signal to block the other
C	The minimum difference in dB between two signals which produce third-order intermodulation products greater than the noise floor
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. - E4E08

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

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

21. - E5A06

What is the magnitude of the circulating current within the components of a parallel LC circuit at resonance?

Select	Answer
A	It equals 2 multiplied by pi, multiplied by frequency, multiplied by inductance
B	It is at a minimum
C	It equals 1 divided by the quantity 2 times pi, multiplied by the square root of inductance L multiplied by capacitance C
D	It is at a maximum

22. - E5B02

What letter is commonly used to represent susceptance?

Select	Answer
A	B
B	Y
C	G
D	X

23. - E5C01

Which of the following represents capacitive reactance in rectangular notation?

Select	Answer
A	Delta
B	-jX
C	Omega
D	+jX

24. - E5D05

What is the power factor of an RL circuit having a 30-degree phase angle between the voltage and the current?

Select	Answer
A	1.73
B	0.866
C	0.5
D	0.577

25. - E6A03

Why does a PN-junction diode not conduct current when reverse biased?

Select	Answer
A	Only P-type semiconductor material can conduct current
B	Only N-type semiconductor material can conduct current
C	Excess holes in P-type material combine with the electrons in N-type material, converting the entire diode into an insulator
D	Holes in P-type material and electrons in the N-type material are separated by the applied voltage, widening the depletion region

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	A sub-harmonic pump signal
C	Forward DC bias current
D	Capacitance of an RF coupling capacitor

27. - E6C08

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

Select	Answer
A	4
B	1
C	2
D	3

28. - E6D01

Why should core saturation of an impedance matching transformer be avoided?

Select	Answer
A	Magnetic flux would increase with frequency
B	RF susceptance would increase
C	Harmonics and distortion could result
D	Temporary changes of the core permeability could result

29. - E6E07

What type of transmission line is used for connections to MMICs?

Select	Answer
A	Microstrip
B	Parallel wire
C	Circular waveguide
D	Miniature coax

30. - E6F05

Which describes an optical shaft encoder?

Select	Answer
A	A device that detects rotation of a control by interrupting a light source with a patterned wheel
B	A device that measures the strength of a beam of light using analog to digital conversion
C	A device for generating RTTY signals by means of a rotating light source
D	A digital encryption device often used to encrypt spacecraft control signals

31. - E7A01

Which circuit is bistable?

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

32. - E7B10

In Figure E7-1, what is the purpose of R1 and R2?

Select	Answer
A	Voltage divider bias
B	Load resistors
C	Self bias
D	Feedback

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

34. - E7D02

What is a characteristic of a switching electronic voltage regulator?

Select	Answer
A	It is generally less efficient than a linear regulator
B	The resistance of a control element is varied in direct proportion to the line voltage or load current
C	It gives a ramp voltage at its output
D	The controlled device's duty cycle is changed to produce a constant average output voltage

35. - E7E10

How does a diode envelope detector function?

Select	Answer
A	By rectification and filtering of RF signals
B	By mixing signals with noise in the transition region of the diode
C	By sensing the change of reactance in the diode with respect to frequency
D	By breakdown of the Zener voltage

36. - E7F04

What is a common method of generating an SSB signal using digital signal processing?

Select	Answer
A	Mixing products are converted to voltages and subtracted by adder circuits
B	Varying quartz crystal characteristics emulated in digital form
C	A frequency synthesizer removes the unwanted sidebands
D	Signals are combined in quadrature phase relationship

37. - E7G05

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

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

38. - E7H05

How is positive feedback supplied in a Pierce oscillator?

Select	Answer
A	Through link coupling
B	Through a neutralizing capacitor
C	Through a tapped coil
D	Through a quartz crystal

39. - E8A10

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

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

40. - E8B06

What is the deviation ratio of an FM-phone signal having a maximum frequency swing of plus or minus 7.5 kHz when the maximum modulation frequency is 3.5 kHz?

Select	Answer
A	0.214
B	2.14
C	47
D	0.47

41. - E8C11

What is the relationship between symbol rate and baud?

Select	Answer
A	They are the same
B	Baud is twice the symbol rate
C	Symbol rate is only used for packet-based modes
D	Baud is only used for RTTY

42. - E8D07

What is a common cause of overmodulation of AFSK signals?

Select	Answer
A	Bit errors in the modem
B	Excessive numbers of retries
C	Ground loops
D	Excessive transmit audio levels

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	63.2 watts
C	632 watts
D	159 watts

44. - E9B03

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

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

45. - E9C11

How is the far-field elevation pattern of a vertically polarized antenna affected by being mounted over seawater versus soil?

Select	Answer
A	The low-angle radiation increases
B	Additional higher vertical angle lobes will appear
C	The low-angle radiation decreases
D	Fewer vertical angle lobes will be present

46. - E9D02

How can linearly polarized Yagi antennas be used to produce circular polarization?

Select	Answer
A	Arrange two Yagis perpendicular to each other with the driven elements at the same point on the boom fed 90 degrees out of phase
B	Arrange two Yagis collinear to each other with the driven elements fed 180 degrees out of phase
C	Stack two Yagis fed 90 degrees out of phase to form an array with the respective elements in parallel planes
D	Stack two Yagis fed in phase to form an array with the respective elements in parallel planes

47. - E9E03

What is the name of the matching system that uses a section of transmission line connected in parallel with the feed line at or near the feed point?

Select	Answer
A	The omega match
B	The gamma match
C	The delta match
D	The stub match

48. - E9F01

What is the velocity factor of a transmission line?

Select	Answer
A	The velocity of the wave in the transmission line multiplied by the velocity of light in a vacuum
B	The index of shielding for coaxial cable
C	The ratio of the characteristic impedance of the line to the terminating impedance
D	The velocity of the wave in the transmission line divided by the velocity of light in a vacuum

49. - E9G10

What do the arcs on a Smith chart represent?

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

50. - E9H05

What is the main drawback of a small wire-loop antenna for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	It is practical for use only on VHF and higher bands
B	All these choices are correct
C	It has a bidirectional pattern
D	It has no clearly defined null

Figure E6-3

Figure E7-1

Figure E9-1