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

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1. - E0A06

Why are there separate electric (E) and magnetic (H) field MPE limits?

Select	Answer
A	E field and H field radiation intensity peaks can occur at different locations
B	All these choices are correct
C	The body reacts to electromagnetic radiation from both the E and H fields
D	Ground reflections and scattering make the field strength vary with location

2. - E1A09

What action or actions should you take if your digital message forwarding station inadvertently forwards a communication that violates FCC rules?

Select	Answer
A	Discontinue forwarding the communication as soon as you become aware of it
B	Notify the nearest FCC Field Engineers office
C	All these choices are correct
D	Notify the originating station that the communication does not comply with FCC rules

3. - E1B08

What limitations may the FCC place on an amateur station if its signal causes interference to domestic broadcast reception, assuming that the receivers involved are of good engineering design?

Select	Answer
A	The amateur station must cease operation on all frequencies below 30 MHz
B	The amateur station must cease operation
C	The amateur station must cease operation on all frequencies above 30 MHz
D	The amateur station must avoid transmitting during certain hours on frequencies that cause the interference

4. - E1C09

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

Select	Answer
A	0.5
B	2.0
C	1.0
D	3.0

5. - E1D03

What is a space telecommand station?

Select	Answer
A	An amateur station located in a satellite or a balloon more than 50 kilometers above the surface of the Earth
B	An amateur station that receives telemetry from a satellite or 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. - 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	Three VEs must certify that the examinee is qualified for the license grant and that they have complied with the administering VE requirements
B	All these choices are correct
C	Photocopy all examination documents and forward them to the FCC for processing
D	Issue the examinee the new or upgrade license

7. - E1F09

Which of the following conditions apply when transmitting spread spectrum emissions?

Select	Answer
A	The transmitting station must be in an area regulated by the FCC or in a country that permits SS emissions
B	A station transmitting SS emission must not cause harmful interference to other stations employing other authorized emissions
C	All these choices are correct
D	The transmission must not be used to obscure the meaning of any communication

8. - E2A12

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

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

9. - E2B02

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

Select	Answer
A	60
B	525
C	1080
D	30

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 often-prohibited practice of posting one's own call sign and frequency on a spotting network
C	The acceptable practice of manually posting the call signs of stations on a spotting network
D	A manual technique for rapidly zero beating or tuning to a station's frequency before calling that station

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. - E2E04

What is indicated when one of the ellipses in an FSK crossed-ellipse display suddenly disappears?

Select	Answer
A	One of the signal filters is saturated
B	The mark and space signal have been inverted
C	Selective fading has occurred
D	The receiver has drifted 5 kHz from the desired receive frequency

13. - E3A05

Tropospheric propagation of microwave signals often occurs in association with what phenomenon?

Select	Answer
A	Lightning discharges
B	Warm and cold fronts
C	Grayline
D	Sprites and jets

14. - E3B01

What is transequatorial propagation?

Select	Answer
A	Propagation between points at the same latitude
B	Propagation between two mid-latitude points at approximately the same distance north and south of the magnetic equator
C	Propagation between points located on the magnetic equator
D	Propagation between a point on the equator and its antipodal point

15. - E3C02

What is indicated by a rising A or K index?

Select	Answer
A	Increasing disruption of the geomagnetic field
B	An increase in the critical frequency
C	Higher levels of solar UV radiation
D	Decreasing disruption of the geomagnetic field

16. - E4A03

Which of the following test instruments is used to display spurious signals and/or intermodulation distortion products generated by an SSB transmitter?

Select	Answer
A	A logic analyzer
B	A time-domain reflectometer
C	A spectrum analyzer
D	A wattmeter

17. - E4B07

What do the subscripts of S parameters represent?

Select	Answer
A	The port or ports at which measurements are made
B	Frequency order of the measurements
C	The relative time between measurements
D	Relative quality of the data

18. - E4C08

An SDR receiver is overloaded when input signals exceed what level?

Select	Answer
A	The reference voltage of the analog-to-digital converter
B	One-half the maximum sampling buffer size
C	One-half the maximum sample rate
D	The maximum count value of the analog-to-digital converter

19. - E4D06

What is the term for spurious signals generated by the combination of two or more signals in a non-linear device or circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Intermodulation
B	Adjacent channel interference
C	Amplifier desensitization
D	Neutralization

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	Common-mode currents on the shield and conductors
D	Tying all ground connections to a common point resulting in differential-mode currents in the shield

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 2 multiplied by pi, multiplied by frequency, multiplied by inductance
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. - E5B11

What is the phase angle between the voltage across and the current through a series RLC circuit if XC is 25 ohms, R is 100 ohms, and XL is 50 ohms?

Select	Answer
A	76 degrees with the voltage leading the current
B	14 degrees with the voltage leading the current
C	76 degrees with the voltage lagging the current
D	14 degrees with the voltage lagging the current

23. - E5C10

Which point on Figure E5-1 best represents the impedance of a series circuit consisting of a 400-ohm resistor and a 38-picofarad capacitor at 14 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	Point 5
B	Point 6
C	Point 2
D	Point 4

24. - E5D02

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

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

25. - E6A02

Which of the following semiconductor materials contains excess free electrons?

Select	Answer
A	Bipolar
B	Insulated gate
C	P-type
D	N-type

26. - E6B01

What is the most useful characteristic of a Zener diode?

Select	Answer
A	A negative resistance region
B	A constant current drop under conditions of varying voltage
C	A constant voltage drop under conditions of varying current
D	An internal capacitance that varies with the applied voltage

27. - E6C07

What best describes a pull-up or pull-down resistor?

Select	Answer
A	A resistor that ensures that an oscillator frequency does not drift
B	A resistor in a keying circuit used to reduce key clicks
C	A resistor connected to an op-amp output that prevents signals from exceeding the power supply voltage
D	A resistor connected to the positive or negative supply line used to establish a voltage when an input or output is an open circuit

28. - E6D13

What is the primary cause of inductor self-resonance?

Select	Answer
A	Inductive kickback
B	Non-linear core hysteresis
C	Inter-turn capacitance
D	The skin effect

29. - E6E11

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

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

30. - E6F05

Which describes an optical shaft encoder?

Select	Answer
A	A digital encryption device often used to encrypt spacecraft control signals
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 device that detects rotation of a control by interrupting a light source with a patterned wheel

31. - E7A03

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

Select	Answer
A	A multiplexer
B	A flip-flop
C	An OR gate
D	An XOR 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	Reduced intermodulation products
B	Signal distortion and excessive bandwidth
C	Increased overall intelligibility
D	Signal inversion

33. - E7C08

Which of the following factors has the greatest effect on the bandwidth and response shape of a crystal ladder filter?

Select	Answer
A	The relative frequencies of the individual crystals
B	The DC voltage applied to the quartz crystal
C	The gain of the RF stage preceding the filter
D	The amplitude of the signals passing through the filter

34. - E7D04

Which of the following types of linear voltage regulator usually make the most efficient use of the primary power source?

Select	Answer
A	A series current source
B	A shunt current source
C	A series regulator
D	A shunt regulator

35. - E7E09

What occurs when an excessive amount of signal energy reaches a mixer circuit?

Select	Answer
A	Automatic limiting occurs
B	Mixer blanking occurs
C	A beat frequency is generated
D	Spurious mixer products are generated

36. - E7F11

What sets the minimum detectable signal level for a direct-sampling SDR receiver in the absence of atmospheric or thermal noise?

Select	Answer
A	Reference voltage level and sample width in bits
B	Missing codes and jitter
C	Data storage transfer rate
D	Sample clock phase noise

37. - E7G07

What magnitude of voltage gain can be expected from the circuit in Figure E73 when R1 is 10 ohms and RF is 470 ohms?

Select	Answer
A	0.21
B	94
C	47
D	24

38. - E7H15

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

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

39. - E8A04

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

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

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	1000
B	3000
C	0.3
D	3

41. - E8C07

What is the bandwidth of a 4800-Hz frequency shift, 9600-baud ASCII FM transmission?

Select	Answer
A	15.36 kHz
B	9.6 kHz
C	5.76 kHz
D	4.8 kHz

42. - E8D11

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

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

43. - E9A09

What is antenna efficiency?

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

44. - E9B04

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

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

45. - E9C02

What is the radiation pattern of two 1/4-wavelength vertical antennas spaced 1/4 wavelength apart and fed 90 degrees out of phase?

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

46. - E9D11

Which of the following conductors would be best for minimizing losses in a station's RF ground system?

Select	Answer
A	Resistive wire, such as spark plug wire
B	Stranded wire
C	Wide flat copper strap
D	Solid wire

47. - E9E07

What parameter describes the interactions at the load end of a mismatched transmission line?

Select	Answer
A	Dielectric constant
B	Reflection coefficient
C	Characteristic impedance
D	Velocity factor

48. - E9F09

What is the approximate physical length of a foam polyethylene dielectric coaxial transmission line that is electrically 1/4 wavelength long at 7.2 MHz?

Select	Answer
A	5.2 meters
B	6.9 meters
C	8.3 meters
D	10.4 meters

49. - E9G10

What do the arcs on a Smith chart represent?

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

50. - E9H09

What is a Pennant antenna?

Select	Answer
A	A four-element, high-gain vertical array invented by George Pennant
B	A stealth antenna built to look like a flagpole
C	A small, vertically oriented receiving antenna consisting of a triangular loop terminated in approximately 900 ohms
D	A form of rhombic antenna terminated in a variable capacitor to provide frequency diversity

Figure E5-1