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

2. - E1A10

If an amateur station is installed aboard a ship or aircraft, what condition must be met before the station is operated?

Select	Answer
A	The amateur operator must have an FCC Marine or Aircraft endorsement on his or her amateur license
B	The amateur station operator must agree not to transmit when the main radio of the ship or aircraft is in use
C	Its operation must be approved by the master of the ship or the pilot in command of the aircraft
D	The amateur station must have a power supply that is completely independent of the main ship or aircraft power supply

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	15 kHz
B	20 kHz
C	3 kHz
D	10 kHz

4. - E1C08

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

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

5. - E1D08

Which VHF amateur bands have frequencies authorized for space stations?

Select	Answer
A	2 meters
B	6 meters and 2 meters
C	2 meters and 1.25 meters
D	6 meters, 2 meters, and 1.25 meters

6. - E1E03

What is a Volunteer Examiner Coordinator?

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

7. - E1F05

Amateur stations may not transmit in which of the following frequency segments if they are located in the contiguous 48 states and north of Line A?

Select	Answer
A	420 MHz - 430 MHz
B	222 MHz - 223 MHz
C	440 MHz - 450 MHz
D	53 MHz - 54 MHz

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 log-periodic dipole array
C	A circularly polarized antenna
D	A linearly polarized antenna

9. - E2B01

How many times per second is a new frame transmitted in a fast-scan (NTSC) television system?

Select	Answer
A	90
B	120
C	30
D	60

10. - E2C02

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

Select	Answer
A	An automatic method for rapidly zero beating or tuning to a station's frequency before calling that station
B	The acceptable practice of manually posting the call signs of stations on a spotting network
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. - E2D03

Which of the following digital modes is especially useful for EME communications?

Select	Answer
A	JT65
B	PACTOR III
C	MSK144
D	Olivia

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

13. - E3A07

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

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

14. - E3B04

What is meant by the terms "extraordinary" and "ordinary" waves?

Select	Answer
A	Refracted rays and reflected waves
B	Long-path and short-path waves
C	Extraordinary waves describe rare long-skip propagation compared to ordinary waves, which travel shorter distances
D	Independent waves created in the ionosphere that are elliptically polarized

15. - E3C08

What does the space weather term G5 mean?

Select	Answer
A	Moderate solar wind
B	An extreme geomagnetic storm
C	Very low solar activity
D	Waning sunspot numbers

16. - E4A02

Which of the following parameters does a spectrum analyzer display on the vertical and horizontal axes?

Select	Answer
A	SWR and time
B	RF amplitude and frequency
C	RF amplitude and time
D	SWR and frequency

17. - E4B02

What is the significance of voltmeter sensitivity expressed in ohms per volt?

Select	Answer
A	When used as an ohmmeter, the reading in ohms divided by the ohms per volt rating will determine the voltage applied to the circuit
B	When used as an ammeter, the full scale reading in amps divided by ohms per volt rating will determine the size of shunt needed
C	The full scale reading of the voltmeter multiplied by its ohms per volt rating will indicate the input impedance of the voltmeter
D	When used as a galvanometer, the reading in volts multiplied by the ohms per volt rating will determine the power drawn by the device under test

18. - E4C01

What is an effect of excessive phase noise in a receiver's local oscillator?

Select	Answer
A	It decreases receiver third-order intercept point
B	It limits the receiver's ability to receive strong signals
C	It can combine with strong signals on nearby frequencies to generate interference
D	It can affect the receiver's frequency calibration

19. - E4D12

What is the term for the reduction in receiver sensitivity caused by a strong signal near the received frequency?

Select	Answer
A	Squelch gain rollback
B	Quieting
C	Desensitization
D	Cross-modulation interference

20. - E4E06

What is one type of electrical interference that might be caused by a nearby personal computer?

Select	Answer
A	A clicking noise at intervals of a few seconds
B	The appearance of unstable modulated or unmodulated signals at specific frequencies
C	A loud AC hum in the audio output of your station receiver
D	A whining type noise that continually pulses off and on

21. - E5A06

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

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

22. - E5B12

What is admittance?

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

23. - E5C03

Which of the following represents an inductive reactance in polar coordinates?

Select	Answer
A	A negative magnitude
B	A negative phase angle
C	A positive phase angle
D	A positive magnitude

24. - E5D08

How many watts are consumed in a circuit having a power factor of 0.6 if the input is 200VAC at 5 amperes?

Select	Answer
A	600 watts
B	1000 watts
C	200 watts
D	1600 watts

25. - E6A05

How does DC input impedance at the gate of a field-effect transistor compare with the DC input impedance of a bipolar transistor?

Select	Answer
A	An FET has higher input impedance
B	An FET has lower input impedance
C	They are both high impedance
D	They are both low impedance

26. - E6B06

Which of the following is a common use of a Schottky diode?

Select	Answer
A	As a constant voltage reference in a power supply
B	As a variable capacitance in an automatic frequency control circuit
C	As a rectifier in high current power supplies
D	As a VHF/UHF mixer or detector

27. - E6C11

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

Select	Answer
A	4
B	2
C	6
D	5

28. - E6D07

What is current in the primary winding of a transformer called if no load is attached to the secondary?

Select	Answer
A	Magnetizing current
B	Excitation current
C	Stabilizing current
D	Direct current

29. - E6E11

What is a characteristic of DIP packaging used for integrated circuits?

Select	Answer
A	Package mounts in a direct inverted position
B	Low leakage doubly insulated package
C	A total of two rows of connecting pins placed on opposite sides of the package (Dual In-line Package)
D	Two chips in each package (Dual In Package)

30. - E6F09

What is the efficiency of a photovoltaic cell?

Select	Answer
A	The output RF power divided by the input DC power
B	The open-circuit voltage divided by the short-circuit current under full illumination
C	The relative fraction of light that is converted to current
D	Cost per kilowatt-hour generated

31. - E7A06

What is a characteristic of a monostable multivibrator?

Select	Answer
A	It maintains a constant output voltage, regardless of variations in the input voltage
B	It produces a continuous square wave oscillating between 1 and 0
C	It switches momentarily to the opposite binary state and then returns to its original state after a set time
D	It stores one bit of data in either a 0 or 1 state

32. - E7B16

What is the effect of intermodulation products in a linear power amplifier?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	Low efficiency
C	Transmission of spurious signals
D	Creation of parasitic oscillations

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

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 controlled device's duty cycle is changed to produce a constant average output voltage
C	It gives a ramp voltage at its output
D	The resistance of a control element is varied in direct proportion to the line voltage or load current

35. - E7E04

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

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

36. - E7F06

What is the minimum number of bits required for an analog-to-digital converter to sample a signal with a range of 1 volt at a resolution of 1 millivolt?

Select	Answer
A	10 bits
B	4 bits
C	8 bits
D	6 bits

37. - E7G02

What is ringing in a filter?

Select	Answer
A	An echo caused by a long time delay
B	Partial cancellation of the signal over a range of frequencies
C	Undesired oscillations added to the desired signal
D	A reduction in high frequency response

38. - E7H15

Which of these functions can be performed by a phase-locked loop?

Select	Answer
A	Photovoltaic conversion, optical coupling
B	Frequency synthesis, FM demodulation
C	Comparison of two digital input signals, digital pulse counter
D	Wide-band AF and RF power amplification

39. - E8A04

What is "dither" with respect to analog-to-digital converters?

Select	Answer
A	A method of decimation by randomly skipping samples
B	An abnormal condition where the converter cannot settle on a value to represent the signal
C	A small amount of noise added to the input signal to allow more precise representation of a signal over time
D	An error caused by irregular quantization step size

40. - E8B09

What is deviation ratio?

Select	Answer
A	The ratio of the carrier center frequency to the audio modulating frequency
B	The ratio of the highest audio modulating frequency to the average audio modulating frequency
C	The ratio of the maximum carrier frequency deviation to the highest audio modulating frequency
D	The ratio of the audio modulating frequency to the center carrier frequency

41. - E8C10

How may data rate be increased without increasing bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	Using forward error correction
B	Using a more efficient digital code
C	It is impossible
D	Increasing analog-to-digital conversion resolution

42. - E8D03

How does the spread spectrum technique of frequency hopping work?

Select	Answer
A	The frequency of the transmitted signal is changed very rapidly according to a pseudorandom sequence also used by the receiving station
B	A binary bit stream is used to shift the phase of an RF carrier very rapidly in a pseudorandom sequence
C	If interference is detected by the receiver it will signal the transmitter to wait until the frequency is clear
D	If interference is detected by the receiver it will signal the transmitter to change frequencies

43. - E9A04

Which of the following factors affect the feed point impedance of an antenna?

Select	Answer
A	Antenna height
B	The settings of an antenna tuner at the transmitter
C	The input power level
D	Transmission line length

44. - E9B09

What type of computer program technique is commonly used for modeling antennas?

Select	Answer
A	Calculus differentiation with respect to physical properties
B	Graphical analysis
C	Method of Moments
D	Mutual impedance analysis

45. - E9C01

What is the radiation pattern of two 1/4-wavelength vertical antennas spaced 1/2-wavelength apart and fed 180 degrees out of phase?

Select	Answer
A	Omni-directional
B	A figure-8 oriented along the axis of the array
C	Cardioid
D	A figure-8 broadside to the axis of the array

46. - E9D03

Where should a high Q loading coil be placed to minimize losses in a shortened vertical antenna?

Select	Answer
A	As close to the transmitter as possible
B	Near the center of the vertical radiator
C	At a voltage node
D	As low as possible on the vertical radiator

47. - E9E04

What is the purpose of the series capacitor in a gamma-type antenna matching network?

Select	Answer
A	To provide a rejection notch that prevents the radiation of harmonics
B	To provide DC isolation between the feed line and the antenna
C	To cancel the inductive reactance of the matching network
D	To transform the antenna impedance to a higher value

48. - E9F06

What is the approximate physical length of an air-insulated, parallel conductor transmission line that is electrically 1/2 wavelength long at 14.10 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	13.3 meters
B	7.0 meters
C	10.6 meters
D	8.5 meters

49. - E9G07

On the Smith chart shown in Figure E9-3, what is the only straight line shown?

Select	Answer
A	The resistance axis
B	The voltage axis
C	The current axis
D	The reactance axis

50. - E9H08

What is the function of a sense antenna?

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

Figure E6-3

Figure E9-3