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

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1. - E0A08

What does SAR measure?

Select	Answer
A	The rate of RF energy reflected from stationary terrain
B	The rate at which RF energy is absorbed by the body
C	Synthetic Aperture Ratio of the human body
D	Signal Amplification Rating

2. - E1A05

What is the maximum power output permitted on the 60 meter band?

Select	Answer
A	100 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to the gain of a half-wave dipole
B	100 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to an isotropic radiator
C	50 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to an isotropic radiator
D	50 watts PEP effective radiated power relative to a dipole

3. - E1B10

What frequencies are authorized to an amateur station operating under RACES rules?

Select	Answer
A	All amateur service frequencies authorized to the control operator
B	Specific segments in the amateur service MF, HF, VHF and UHF bands
C	Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS) channels
D	Specific local government channels

4. - E1C13

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

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

5. - E1D09

Which UHF amateur bands have frequencies authorized for space stations?

Select	Answer
A	70 cm and 33 cm
B	70 cm and 13 cm
C	33 cm and 13 cm
D	70 cm only

6. - E1E11

What must the VE team do if an examinee scores a passing grade on all examination elements needed for an upgrade or new license?

Select	Answer
A	Photocopy all examination documents and forward them to the FCC for processing
B	Three VEs must certify that the examinee is qualified for the license grant and that they have complied with the administering VE requirements
C	Issue the examinee the new or upgrade license
D	All these choices are correct

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	Any licensed amateur operator
C	Only General, Advanced or Amateur Extra Class operators
D	Only Amateur Extra Class operators

8. - E2A04

What is meant by the term mode? as applied to an amateur radio satellite?

Select	Answer
A	Whether the satellite is in a low earth or geostationary orbit
B	Whether the satellite is in a polar or equatorial orbit
C	The satellite's orientation with respect to the Earth
D	The satellite's uplink and downlink frequency bands

9. - E2B05

Which of the following describes the use of vestigial sideband in analog fast-scan TV transmissions?

Select	Answer
A	The vestigial sideband carries the audio information
B	Vestigial sideband provides high frequency emphasis to sharpen the picture
C	Vestigial sideband reduces bandwidth while allowing for simple video detector circuitry
D	The vestigial sideband contains chroma information

10. - E2C11

How should you generally identify your station when attempting to contact a DX station during a contest or in a pileup?

Select	Answer
A	Send the call sign of the DX station three times, the words this is,then your call sign three times
B	Send your full call sign and grid square
C	Send your full call sign once or twice
D	Send only the last two letters of your call sign until you make contact

11. - E2D11

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

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

12. - E2E10

Which of these digital modes has the narrowest bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	300-baud packet
B	PSK31
C	MFSK16
D	170 Hz shift, 45-baud RTTY

13. - E3A10

Which type of atmospheric structure can create a path for microwave propagation?

Select	Answer
A	The jet stream
B	Dust devil
C	Wind shear
D	Temperature inversion

14. - E3B06

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

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

15. - E3C04

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

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

16. - E4A05

What is the purpose of the prescaler function on a frequency counter?

Select	Answer
A	It multiplies a higher frequency signal so a low-frequency counter can display the operating frequency
B	It prevents oscillation in a low-frequency counter circuit
C	It divides a higher frequency signal so a low-frequency counter can display the input frequency
D	It amplifies low-level signals for more accurate counting

17. - E4B03

Which S parameter is equivalent to forward gain?

Select	Answer
A	S22
B	S21
C	S12
D	S11

18. - E4C15

What is reciprocal mixing?

Select	Answer
A	Two out-of-band signals mixing to generate an in-band spurious signal
B	Two digital signals combining from alternate time slots
C	In-phase signals cancelling in a mixer resulting in loss of receiver sensitivity
D	Local oscillator phase noise mixing with adjacent strong signals to create interference to desired signals

19. - E4D02

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

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

20. - E4E07

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

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

21. - E5A13

What is an effect of increasing Q in a series resonant circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Fewer components are needed for the same performance
B	Phase shift can become uncontrolled
C	Parasitic effects are minimized
D	Internal voltages increase

22. - E5B01

What is the term for the time required for the capacitor in an RC circuit to be charged to 63.2% of the applied voltage or to discharge to 36.8% of its initial voltage?

Select	Answer
A	One time constant
B	An exponential rate of one
C	A time factor of one
D	One exponential period

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. - 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. - E6A06

What is the beta of a bipolar junction transistor?

Select	Answer
A	The change in collector current with respect to base current
B	The breakdown voltage of the base to collector junction
C	The frequency at which the current gain is reduced to 0.707
D	The switching speed

26. - E6B05

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

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

27. - E6C10

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

Select	Answer
A	3
B	1
C	2
D	4

28. - E6D07

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

Select	Answer
A	Excitation current
B	Stabilizing current
C	Direct current
D	Magnetizing 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	A total of two rows of connecting pins placed on opposite sides of the package (Dual In-line Package)
C	Low leakage doubly insulated package
D	Two chips in each package (Dual In Package)

30. - E6F03

What is the most common configuration of an optoisolator or optocoupler?

Select	Answer
A	An LED and a phototransistor
B	A frequency modulated helium-neon laser
C	A lens and a photomultiplier
D	An amplitude modulated helium-neon laser

31. - E7A03

Which of the following can divide the frequency of a pulse train by 2?

Select	Answer
A	A flip-flop
B	An XOR gate
C	A multiplexer
D	An OR gate

32. - E7B07

Which of the following is a likely result when a Class C amplifier is used to amplify a single-sideband phone signal?

Select	Answer
A	Increased overall intelligibility
B	Signal distortion and excessive bandwidth
C	Reduced intermodulation products
D	Signal inversion

33. - E7C10

Which of the following filters would be the best choice for use in a 2 meter band repeater duplexer?

Select	Answer
A	A crystal filter
B	An L-C filter
C	A DSP filter
D	A cavity filter

34. - E7D06

What is the purpose of Q1 in the circuit shown in Figure E7-2?

Select	Answer
A	It controls the current supplied to the load
B	It provides a constant load for the voltage source
C	It provides D1 with current
D	It provides negative feedback to improve regulation

35. - E7E08

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

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

36. - E7F13

What is the function of taps in a digital signal processing filter?

Select	Answer
A	Select the point at which baseband signals are generated
B	Provide incremental signal delays for filter algorithms
C	To reduce excess signal pressure levels
D	Provide access for debugging software

37. - E7G02

What is ringing in a filter?

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

38. - E7H09

What type of frequency synthesizer circuit uses a phase accumulator, lookup table, digital to analog converter, and a low-pass anti-alias filter?

Select	Answer
A	A phase-locked loop synthesizer
B	A diode-switching matrix synthesizer
C	A direct digital synthesizer
D	A hybrid synthesizer

39. - E8A06

What is the approximate ratio of PEP-to-average power in a typical single-sideband phone signal?

Select	Answer
A	100 to 1
B	25 to 1
C	2.5 to 1
D	1 to 1

40. - E8B11

What is digital time division multiplexing?

Select	Answer
A	Two or more signals are quadrature modulated to increase bandwidth efficiency
B	Two or more data streams share the same channel by transmitting time of transmission as the sub-carrier
C	Two or more signals are arranged to share discrete time slots of a data transmission
D	Two or more data streams are assigned to discrete sub-carriers on an FM transmitter

41. - E8C02

What is the definition of symbol rate in a digital transmission?

Select	Answer
A	The number of control characters in a message packet
B	The number of characters carried per second by the station-to-station link
C	The duration of each bit in a message sent over the air
D	The rate at which the waveform changes to convey information

42. - E8D08

What parameter evaluates distortion of an AFSK signal caused by excessive input audio levels?

Select	Answer
A	Baud rate
B	Intermodulation Distortion (IMD)
C	Repeat Request Rate (RRR)
D	Signal-to-noise ratio

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	63.2 watts
B	159 watts
C	252 watts
D	632 watts

44. - E9B04

What is the front-to-back ratio of the radiation pattern shown in Figure E92?

Select	Answer
A	3 dB
B	28 dB
C	15 dB
D	38 dB

45. - E9C05

Which of the following is a type of OCFD antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A remotely tunable dipole antenna using orthogonally controlled frequency diversity
B	A multiband dipole antenna using one-way circular polarization for frequency diversity
C	A dipole fed approximately 1/3 the way from one end with a 4:1 balun to provide multiband operation
D	A folded dipole center-fed with 300-ohm transmission line

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. - E9E04

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

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

48. - E9F11

What impedance does a 1/8-wavelength transmission line present to a generator when the line is open at the far end?

Select	Answer
A	The same as the characteristic impedance of the line
B	Infinite
C	A capacitive reactance
D	An inductive reactance

49. - E9G11

How are the wavelength scales on a Smith chart calibrated?

Select	Answer
A	In fractions of antenna electrical frequency
B	In fractions of transmission line electrical wavelength
C	In fractions of antenna electrical wavelength
D	In fractions of transmission line electrical frequency

50. - E9H07

Why is RF attenuation used when direction-finding?

Select	Answer
A	To prevent receiver overload which reduces pattern nulls
B	To compensate for isotropic directivity and the antenna effect of feed lines
C	To narrow the receiver bandwidth
D	To increase receiver sensitivity

Figure E6-3

Figure E7-2