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

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1. - E0A05

What is one of the potential hazards of operating in the amateur radio microwave bands?

Select	Answer
A	The high gain antennas commonly used can result in high exposure levels
B	The extremely high frequency energy can damage the joints of antenna structures
C	Microwaves often travel long distances by ionospheric reflection
D	Microwaves are ionizing radiation

2. - E1A03

What is the maximum legal carrier frequency on the 20 meter band for transmitting USB AFSK digital signals having a 1 kHz bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	14.149 MHz
B	14.070 MHz
C	14.100 MHz
D	14.349 MHz

3. - E1B01

Which of the following constitutes a spurious emission?

Select	Answer
A	A signal transmitted to prevent its detection by any station other than the intended recipient
B	An amateur station transmission made without the proper call sign identification
C	An emission outside the signal's necessary bandwidth that can be reduced or eliminated without affecting the information transmitted
D	Any transmitted signal that unintentionally interferes with another licensed radio station

4. - E1C02

Which of the following types of communications may be transmitted to amateur stations in foreign countries?

Select	Answer
A	Communications incidental to the purpose of the amateur service and remarks of a personal nature
B	Business-related messages for non-profit organizations
C	Messages intended for users of the maritime satellite service
D	All these choices are correct

5. - E1D03

What is a space telecommand station?

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

6. - E1E03

What is a Volunteer Examiner Coordinator?

Select	Answer
A	A person who has volunteered to prepare amateur operator license examinations
B	The person who has entered into an agreement with the FCC to be the VE session manager
C	An organization that has entered into an agreement with the FCC to coordinate, prepare, and administer amateur operator license examinations
D	A person who has volunteered to administer amateur operator license examinations

7. - E1F07

When may an amateur station send a message to a business?

Select	Answer
A	When transmitting international third-party communications
B	When the control operator is employed by the FCC or another government agency
C	When neither the amateur nor his or her employer has a pecuniary interest in the communications
D	When the total money involved does not exceed $25

8. - E2A12

What is the purpose of digital store-and-forward functions on an amateur radio satellite?

Select	Answer
A	To delay download of telemetry between satellites
B	To relay messages between satellites
C	To store digital messages in the satellite for later download by other stations
D	To upload operational software for the transponder

9. - E2B09

What hardware, other than a receiver with SSB capability and a suitable computer, is needed to decode SSTV using Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM)?

Select	Answer
A	A special front end limiter
B	A special IF converter
C	No other hardware is needed
D	A special notch filter to remove synchronization pulses

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	A manual technique for rapidly zero beating or tuning to a station's frequency before calling that station
C	An automatic method 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. - E2D08

What type of packet frame is used to transmit APRS beacon data?

Select	Answer
A	Connect
B	Unnumbered Information
C	Disconnect
D	Acknowledgement

12. - E2E02

What do the letters FEC mean as they relate to digital operation?

Select	Answer
A	First Error Correction
B	Forward Error Correction
C	Final Error Correction
D	Fatal Error Correction

13. - E3A06

What might help to restore contact when DX signals become too weak to copy across an entire HF band a few hours after sunset?

Select	Answer
A	Wait 90 minutes or so for the signal degradation to pass
B	Switch to a lower frequency HF band
C	Switch to a higher frequency HF band
D	Wait 24 hours before attempting another communication on the band

14. - E3B05

Which amateur bands typically support long-path propagation?

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

15. - E3C15

What might be indicated by a sudden rise in radio background noise across a large portion of the HF spectrum?

Select	Answer
A	Long-path propagation is likely
B	A solar flare has occurred
C	Increased transequatorial propagation is likely
D	A temperature inversion has occurred

16. - E4A06

What is the effect of aliasing on a digital oscilloscope caused by setting the time base too slow?

Select	Answer
A	Excessive blanking occurs, which prevents display of the signal
B	A false, jittery low-frequency version of the signal is displayed
C	All signals will have a DC offset
D	Calibration of the vertical scale is no longer valid

17. - E4B04

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

Select	Answer
A	S11
B	S21
C	S12
D	S22

18. - E4C05

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

Select	Answer
A	The noise figure of a 1 Hz bandwidth receiver
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 minimum detectable signal as a function of receive frequency

19. - E4D08

What causes intermodulation in an electronic circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Nonlinear circuits or devices
B	Too little gain
C	Lack of neutralization
D	Positive feedback

20. - E4E07

Which of the following can cause shielded cables to radiate or receive interference?

Select	Answer
A	Low inductance ground connections at both ends of the shield
B	Use of braided shielding material
C	Tying all ground connections to a common point resulting in differential-mode currents in the shield
D	Common-mode currents on the shield and conductors

21. - E5A09

How is the Q of an RLC parallel resonant circuit calculated?

Select	Answer
A	Resistance divided by the reactance of either the inductance or capacitance
B	Reactance of the inductance multiplied by the reactance of the capacitance
C	Reactance of either the inductance or capacitance multiplied by the resistance
D	Reactance of either the inductance or capacitance divided by the resistance

22. - E5B06

What is susceptance?

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

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	Elliptical coordinates
C	Faraday grid
D	Maidenhead grid

24. - E5D13

How many watts are consumed in a circuit consisting of a 100-ohm resistor in series with a 100-ohm inductive reactance drawing 1 ampere?

Select	Answer
A	200 watts
B	70.7 watts
C	100 watts
D	141.4 watts

25. - E6A11

In Figure E6-1, what is the schematic symbol for a P-channel junction FET?

Select	Answer
A	1
B	2
C	6
D	3

26. - E6B08

Which of the following is a Schottky barrier diode?

Select	Answer
A	Thermionic emission diode
B	PIN junction
C	Electrolytic rectifier
D	Metal-semiconductor junction

27. - E6C10

In Figure E6-3, what is the schematic symbol for a NOR gate?

Select	Answer
A	1
B	4
C	3
D	2

28. - E6D05

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

Select	Answer
A	Ferrite toroids generally require fewer turns to produce a given inductance value
B	Ferrite toroids are easier to use with surface mount technology
C	Ferrite toroids generally have lower initial permeability
D	Ferrite toroids generally have better temperature stability

29. - E6E05

Which of the following noise figure values is typical of a low-noise UHF preamplifier?

Select	Answer
A	-20 dBm
B	44 dBm
C	2 dB
D	-10 dB

30. - E6F11

What is the approximate open-circuit voltage produced by a fully illuminated silicon photovoltaic cell?

Select	Answer
A	0.5 V
B	0.1 V
C	12 V
D	1.5 V

31. - E7A10

What is a truth table?

Select	Answer
A	A table of logic symbols that indicate the logic states of an op-amp
B	A table of logic symbols that indicate the high logic states of an op-amp
C	A diagram showing logic states when the digital device output is true
D	A list of inputs and corresponding outputs for a digital device

32. - E7B10

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

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

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

34. - E7D07

What is the purpose of C2 in the circuit shown in Figure E7-2?

Select	Answer
A	To provide fixed DC bias for Q1
B	It is a brute force filter for the output
C	It bypasses rectifier output ripple around D1
D	To self-resonate at the hum frequency

35. - E7E07

What is meant by the term "baseband" in radio communications?

Select	Answer
A	The lowest frequency band that the transmitter or receiver covers
B	The frequency range occupied by a message signal prior to modulation
C	The unmodulated bandwidth of the transmitted signal
D	The basic oscillator frequency in an FM transmitter that is multiplied to increase the deviation and carrier frequency

36. - E7F01

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

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

37. - E7G03

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

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

38. - E7H08

Which of the following components can be used to reduce thermal drift in crystal oscillators?

Select	Answer
A	Wirewound resistors
B	Toroidal inductors
C	Non-inductive resistors
D	NP0 capacitors

39. - E8A10

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

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

40. - E8B05

What is the deviation ratio of an FM-phone signal having a maximum frequency swing of plus-or-minus 5 kHz when the maximum modulation frequency is 3 kHz?

Select	Answer
A	0.167
B	60
C	0.6
D	1.67

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 control characters in a message packet
C	The duration of each bit in a message sent over the air
D	The number of characters carried per second by the station-to-station link

42. - E8D06

What is the advantage of including parity bits in ASCII characters?

Select	Answer
A	The signal can overpower interfering signals
B	Foreign language characters can be sent
C	Some types of errors can be detected
D	Faster transmission rate

43. - E9A03

What is the radiation resistance of an antenna?

Select	Answer
A	The specific impedance of the antenna
B	The value of a resistance that would dissipate the same amount of power as that radiated from an antenna
C	The combined losses of the antenna elements and feed line
D	The resistance in the atmosphere that an antenna must overcome to be able to radiate a signal

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	18 dB
C	12 dB
D	14 dB

45. - E9C07

What is the approximate feed point impedance at the center of a two-wire folded dipole antenna?

Select	Answer
A	300 ohms
B	50 ohms
C	72 ohms
D	450 ohms

46. - E9D04

Why should an HF mobile antenna loading coil have a high ratio of reactance to resistance?

Select	Answer
A	To minimize the Q
B	To swamp out harmonics
C	To minimize losses
D	To lower the radiation angle

47. - E9E09

Which of the following is used to shunt-feed a grounded tower at its base?

Select	Answer
A	Hairpin match
B	Double-bazooka match
C	All these choices are correct
D	Gamma 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 velocity of the wave in the transmission line divided by the velocity of light in a vacuum
C	The ratio of the characteristic impedance of the line to the terminating impedance
D	The index of shielding for coaxial cable

49. - E9G01

Which of the following can be calculated using a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Radiation resistance
B	Antenna radiation pattern
C	Impedance along transmission lines
D	Radio propagation

50. - E9H11

What feature of a cardioid pattern antenna makes it useful for direction finding?

Select	Answer
A	High radiation angle
B	A very sharp single null
C	Broadband response
D	A very sharp peak

Figure E6-1

Figure E6-3

Figure E7-1

Figure E7-2

Figure E9-1