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

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1. - E0A01

What is the primary function of an external earth connection or ground rod?

Select	Answer
A	Lightning protection
B	Reduce RFI to telephones and home entertainment systems
C	Reduce RF current flow between pieces of equipment
D	Reduce received noise

2. - E1A07

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

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

3. - E1B01

Which of the following constitutes a spurious emission?

Select	Answer
A	Any transmitted signal that unintentionally interferes with another licensed radio station
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	A signal transmitted to prevent its detection by any station other than the intended recipient

4. - E1C09

What is the highest modulation index permitted at the highest modulation frequency for angle modulation below 29.0 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	2.0
B	1.0
C	0.5
D	3.0

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. - E1E06

Who is responsible for the proper conduct and necessary supervision during an amateur operator license examination session?

Select	Answer
A	The VE session manager
B	Each administering VE
C	The FCC
D	The VEC coordinating the session

7. - E1F10

Who may be the control operator of an auxiliary station?

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

8. - E2A05

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

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

9. - E2B02

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

Select	Answer
A	30
B	60
C	1080
D	525

10. - E2C04

Which of the following frequencies are sometimes used for amateur radio mesh networks?

Select	Answer
A	HF frequencies where digital communications are permitted
B	Cable TV channels 41 through 43
C	Frequencies shared with various unlicensed wireless data services
D	The 60 meter band channel centered on 5373 kHz

11. - E2D11

Which of the following data are used by the APRS network to communicate station location?

Select	Answer
A	Latitude and longitude
B	Polar coordinates
C	Time and frequency
D	Radio direction finding spectrum analysis

12. - E2E06

What is the most common data rate used for HF packet?

Select	Answer
A	1200 baud
B	48 baud
C	110 baud
D	300 baud

13. - E3A07

Atmospheric ducts capable of propagating microwave signals often form over what geographic feature?

Select	Answer
A	Urban areas
B	Forests
C	Mountain ranges
D	Bodies of water

14. - E3B06

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

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

15. - E3C14

Why does the radio-path horizon distance exceed the geometric horizon?

Select	Answer
A	Downward bending due to density variations in the atmosphere
B	E-region skip
C	Due to the Doppler effect
D	D-region skip

16. - E4A06

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

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

17. - E4B01

Which of the following factors most affects the accuracy of a frequency counter?

Select	Answer
A	Temperature coefficient of the logic
B	Time base accuracy
C	Input attenuator accuracy
D	Decade divider accuracy

18. - E4C09

Which of the following choices is a good reason for selecting a high frequency for the design of the IF in a superheterodyne HF or VHF communications receiver?

Select	Answer
A	Reduced drift
B	Easier for front-end circuitry to eliminate image responses
C	Fewer components in the receiver
D	Improved receiver noise figure

19. - E4D02

Which of the following describes problems caused by poor dynamic range in a receiver?

Select	Answer
A	Cross-modulation of the desired signal and insufficient audio power to operate the speaker
B	Oscillator instability and severe audio distortion of all but the strongest received signals
C	Oscillator instability requiring frequent retuning and loss of ability to recover the opposite sideband
D	Spurious signals caused by cross-modulation and desensitization from strong adjacent signals

20. - E4E01

What problem can occur when using an automatic notch filter (ANF) to remove interfering carriers while receiving CW signals?

Select	Answer
A	Received CW signals will appear to be modulated at the DSP clock frequency
B	Any nearby signal passing through the DSP system will overwhelm the desired signal
C	Ringing in the DSP filter will completely remove the spaces between the CW characters
D	Removal of the CW signal as well as the interfering carrier

21. - E5A05

What is the result of increasing the Q of an impedance-matching circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Matching bandwidth is increased
B	Matching range is increased
C	Matching bandwidth is decreased
D	It has no effect on impedance matching

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

23. - E5C05

What is the name of the diagram used to show the phase relationship between impedances at a given frequency?

Select	Answer
A	Far field diagram
B	Near field diagram
C	Venn diagram
D	Phasor diagram

24. - E5D02

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

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

25. - E6A12

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

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

26. - E6B05

What characteristic of a PIN diode makes it useful as an RF switch?

Select	Answer
A	Low junction capacitance
B	Extremely high reverse breakdown voltage
C	Ability to dissipate large amounts of power
D	Reverse bias controls its forward voltage drop

27. - E6C11

In Figure E6-3, what is the schematic symbol for the NOT operation (inverter)?

Select	Answer
A	6
B	4
C	2
D	5

28. - E6D03

Which of the following is an aspect of the piezoelectric effect?

Select	Answer
A	Generation of electrical energy in the presence of light
B	Mechanical deformation of material by the application of a voltage
C	Increased conductivity in the presence of light
D	Mechanical deformation of material by the application of a magnetic field

29. - E6E02

Which of the following device packages is a through-hole type?

Select	Answer
A	SOT
B	PLCC
C	DIP
D	Ball grid array

30. - E6F08

Why are optoisolators often used in conjunction with solid-state circuits when switching 120 VAC?

Select	Answer
A	Optoisolators eliminate the effects of reflected light in the control circuit
B	Optoisolators provide a very high degree of electrical isolation between a control circuit and the circuit being switched
C	Optoisolators provide a low impedance link between a control circuit and a power circuit
D	Optoisolators provide impedance matching between the control circuit and power circuit

31. - E7A08

What logical operation does an OR gate perform?

Select	Answer
A	It produces logic 0 at its output if all inputs are logic 1
B	It produces logic 1 at its output if all inputs are logic 0
C	It only produces logic 0 at its output when all inputs are logic 1
D	It produces logic 1 at its output if any or all inputs are logic 1

32. - E7B01

For what portion of the signal cycle does each active element in a push-pull Class AB amplifier conduct?

Select	Answer
A	The entire cycle
B	Less than 180 degrees
C	More than 180 degrees but less than 360 degrees
D	Exactly 180 degrees

33. - E7C11

Which of the following describes a receiving filter's ability to reject signals occupying an adjacent channel?

Select	Answer
A	Passband ripple
B	Shape factor
C	Noise factor
D	Phase response

34. - E7D10

What is the primary reason that a high-frequency switching type high-voltage power supply can be both less expensive and lighter in weight than a conventional power supply?

Select	Answer
A	It uses a diode bridge rectifier for increased output
B	The inverter design does not require any output filtering
C	It uses a large power factor compensation capacitor to recover power from the unused portion of the AC cycle
D	The high frequency inverter design uses much smaller transformers and filter components for an equivalent power output

35. - E7E04

What is one way a single-sideband phone signal can be generated?

Select	Answer
A	By using a reactance modulator followed by a mixer
B	By using a balanced modulator followed by a filter
C	By using a loop modulator followed by a mixer
D	By driving a product detector with a DSB signal

36. - E7F14

Which of the following would allow a digital signal processing filter to create a sharper filter response?

Select	Answer
A	Higher data rate
B	Complex phasor representations
C	Double-precision math routines
D	More taps

37. - E7G12

What is an operational amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	A digital audio amplifier whose characteristics are determined by components external to the amplifier
B	An amplifier used to increase the average output of frequency modulated amateur signals to the legal limit
C	A RF amplifier used in the UHF and microwave regions
D	A high-gain, direct-coupled differential amplifier with very high input impedance and very low output impedance

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

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	Immunity to out-of-sequence coding reduces spurious responses
C	Very low power consumption decreases frequency drift
D	Very high speed allows digitizing high frequencies

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	3
B	1000
C	0.3
D	3000

41. - E8C11

What is the relationship between symbol rate and baud?

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

42. - E8D11

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

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

43. - E9A09

What is antenna efficiency?

Select	Answer
A	Radiation resistance divided by transmission resistance
B	Effective radiated power divided by transmitter output
C	Radiation resistance divided by total resistance
D	Total resistance divided by radiation resistance

44. - E9B10

What is the principle of a Method of Moments analysis?

Select	Answer
A	A wire is modeled as a single sine-wave voltage source
B	A wire is modeled as a series of segments, each having a distinct value of voltage across it
C	A wire is modeled as a series of segments, each having a uniform value of current
D	A wire is modeled as a single sine-wave current generator

45. - E9C06

What is the effect of adding a terminating resistor to a rhombic antenna?

Select	Answer
A	It changes the radiation pattern from horizontal to vertical polarization
B	It changes the radiation pattern from bidirectional to unidirectional
C	It decreases the ground loss
D	It reflects the standing waves on the antenna elements back to the transmitter

46. - E9D10

What happens to feed-point impedance at the base of a fixed length HF mobile antenna when operated below its resonant frequency?

Select	Answer
A	The radiation resistance increases and the capacitive reactance decreases
B	The radiation resistance decreases and the capacitive reactance increases
C	The radiation resistance decreases and the capacitive reactance decreases
D	The radiation resistance increases and the capacitive reactance increases

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 epsilon match
C	The gamma match
D	The delta match

48. - E9F03

Why is the physical length of a coaxial cable transmission line shorter than its electrical length?

Select	Answer
A	The characteristic impedance is higher in a parallel feed line
B	The surge impedance is higher in a parallel feed line
C	Electrical signals move more slowly in a coaxial cable than in air
D	Skin effect is less pronounced in the coaxial cable

49. - E9G03

Which of the following is often determined using a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Satellite azimuth and elevation bearings
B	Trigonometric functions
C	Beam headings and radiation patterns
D	Impedance and SWR values in transmission lines

50. - E9H01

When constructing a Beverage antenna, which of the following factors should be included in the design to achieve good performance at the desired frequency?

Select	Answer
A	It should be configured as a four-sided loop
B	It must be mounted more than 1 wavelength above ground
C	Its overall length must not exceed 1/4 wavelength
D	It should be one or more wavelengths long

Figure E6-3