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. - E1A06

Where must the carrier frequency of a CW signal be set to comply with FCC rules for 60 meter operation?

Select	Answer
A	On any frequency where the signal's sidebands are within the channel
B	At the highest frequency of the channel
C	At the lowest frequency of the channel
D	At the center frequency of the channel

3. - E1B11

What does PRB-1 require of regulations affecting amateur radio?

Select	Answer
A	No limitations may be placed on antenna size or placement
B	Use of wireless devices in a vehicle is exempt from regulation
C	Amateur radio operations must be permitted in any private residence
D	Reasonable accommodations of amateur radio must be made

4. - E1C12

On what portion of the 630 meter band are phone emissions permitted?

Select	Answer
A	Only the top 3 kHz
B	None
C	Only the bottom 3 kHz
D	The entire band

5. - E1D05

What must be posted at the station location of a station being operated by telecommand on or within 50 km of the earth's surface?

Select	Answer
A	A label with the name, address, and telephone number of the control operator
B	All these choices are correct
C	A label with the name, address, and telephone number of the station licensee
D	A photocopy of the station license

6. - E1E08

To which of the following examinees may a VE not administer an examination?

Select	Answer
A	Employees of the VE
B	Friends of the VE
C	Relatives of the VE as listed in the FCC rules
D	All these choices are correct

7. - E1F03

Under what circumstances may a dealer sell an external RF power amplifier capable of operation below 144 MHz if it has not been granted FCC certification?

Select	Answer
A	It was purchased in used condition from an amateur operator and is sold to another amateur operator for use at that operator's station
B	The equipment dealer assembled it from a kit
C	It was imported from a manufacturer in a country that does not require certification of RF power amplifiers
D	It was imported from a manufacturer in another country and was certificated by that country's government

8. - E2A02

Which of the following occurs when a satellite is using an inverting linear transponder?

Select	Answer
A	Doppler shift is reduced because the uplink and downlink shifts are in opposite directions
B	Upper sideband on the uplink becomes lower sideband on the downlink, and vice versa
C	Signal position in the band is reversed
D	All these choices are correct

9. - E2B07

What is the name of the signal component that carries color information in NTSC video?

Select	Answer
A	Hue
B	Luminance
C	Chroma
D	Spectral intensity

10. - E2C04

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

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

11. - E2D09

What type of modulation is used for JT65 contacts?

Select	Answer
A	RTTY
B	PSK
C	IEEE 802.11
D	Multi-tone AFSK

12. - E2E02

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

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

13. - E3A05

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

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

14. - E3B04

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

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

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

16. - E4A07

Which of the following is an advantage of using an antenna analyzer compared to an SWR bridge to measure antenna SWR?

Select	Answer
A	Antenna analyzers do not need an external RF source
B	Antenna analyzers display a time-varying representation of the modulation envelope
C	All these choices are correct
D	Antenna analyzers automatically tune your antenna for resonance

17. - E4B08

Which of the following can be used to measure the Q of a series-tuned circuit?

Select	Answer
A	The frequency shift
B	The resonant frequency of the circuit
C	The bandwidth of the circuit's frequency response
D	The inductance to capacitance ratio

18. - E4C06

A CW receiver with the AGC off has an equivalent input noise power density of -174 dBm/Hz. What would be the level of an unmodulated carrier input to this receiver that would yield an audio output SNR of 0 dB in a 400 Hz noise bandwidth?

Select	Answer
A	-148 dBm
B	-155 dBm
C	-174 dBm
D	-164 dBm

19. - E4D10

What does a third-order intercept level of 40 dBm mean with respect to receiver performance?

Select	Answer
A	A pair of 40 dBm input signals will theoretically generate a third-order intermodulation product that has the same output amplitude as either of the input signals
B	A pair of 1 mW input signals will produce a third-order intermodulation product that is 40 dB stronger than the input signal
C	Signals less than 40 dBm will not generate audible third-order intermodulation products
D	The receiver can tolerate signals up to 40 dB above the noise floor without producing third-order intermodulation products

20. - E4E09

What undesirable effect can occur when using an IF noise blanker?

Select	Answer
A	The audio frequency bandwidth of the received signal might be compressed
B	Received audio in the speech range might have an echo effect
C	FM signals can no longer be demodulated
D	Nearby signals may appear to be excessively wide even if they meet emission standards

21. - E5A16

What is the resonant frequency of an RLC circuit if R is 33 ohms, L is 50 microhenries and C is 10 picofarads?

Select	Answer
A	7.12 kHz
B	23.5 kHz
C	23.5 MHz
D	7.12 MHz

22. - E5B08

What is the phase angle between the voltage across and the current through a series RLC circuit if XC is 100 ohms, R is 100 ohms, and XL is 75 ohms?

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

23. - E5C03

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

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

24. - E5D11

What is the power factor of an RL circuit having a 60-degree phase angle between the voltage and the current?

Select	Answer
A	1.414
B	1.73
C	0.866
D	0.5

25. - E6A12

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

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

26. - E6B03

What type of bias is required for an LED to emit light?

Select	Answer
A	Zero bias
B	Reverse bias
C	Forward bias
D	Inductive bias

27. - E6C05

What is an advantage of CMOS logic devices over TTL devices?

Select	Answer
A	Differential output capability
B	Lower distortion
C	Lower power consumption
D	Immune to damage from static discharge

28. - E6D07

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

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

29. - E6E04

Which is the most common input and output impedance of circuits that use MMICs?

Select	Answer
A	50 ohms
B	300 ohms
C	450 ohms
D	10 ohms

30. - E6F02

What happens to the conductivity of a photoconductive material when light shines on it?

Select	Answer
A	It decreases
B	It increases
C	It becomes unstable
D	It stays the same

31. - E7A01

Which circuit is bistable?

Select	Answer
A	An AND gate
B	An OR gate
C	A flip-flop
D	A bipolar amplifier

32. - E7B11

In Figure E7-1, what is the purpose of R3?

Select	Answer
A	Output load resistor
B	Fixed bias
C	Self bias
D	Emitter bypass

33. - E7C09

What is a crystal lattice filter?

Select	Answer
A	An audio filter made with four quartz crystals that resonate at 1 kHz intervals
B	A filter with narrow bandwidth and steep skirts made using quartz crystals
C	A filter using lattice-shaped quartz crystals for high-Q performance
D	A power supply filter made with interlaced quartz crystals

34. - E7D08

What type of circuit is shown in Figure E7-2?

Select	Answer
A	Linear voltage regulator
B	Grounded emitter amplifier
C	Monostable multivibrator
D	Switching voltage regulator

35. - E7E08

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

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

36. - E7F07

What function is performed by a Fast Fourier Transform?

Select	Answer
A	Converting analog signals to digital form
B	Converting digital signals from the time domain to the frequency domain
C	Converting 8-bit data to 16-bit data
D	Converting digital signals to analog form

37. - E7G12

What is an operational amplifier?

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

38. - E7H10

What information is contained in the lookup table of a direct digital synthesizer (DDS)?

Select	Answer
A	The phase relationship between a voltage-controlled oscillator and the output waveform
B	Amplitude values that represent the desired waveform
C	Frequently used receiver and transmitter frequencies
D	The phase relationship between a reference oscillator and the output waveform

39. - E8A10

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

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

40. - E8B09

What is deviation ratio?

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

41. - E8C03

Why should phase-shifting of a PSK signal be done at the zero crossing of the RF signal?

Select	Answer
A	All these choices are correct
B	To simplify modulation
C	To improve carrier suppression
D	To minimize bandwidth

42. - E8D05

What is the most common method of reducing key clicks?

Select	Answer
A	High-pass filters at the transmitter output
B	Low-pass filters at the transmitter output
C	Reduce keying waveform rise and fall times
D	Increase keying waveform rise and fall times

43. - E9A06

What is the effective radiated power relative to a dipole of a repeater station with 200 watts transmitter power output, 4 dB feed line loss, 3.2 dB duplexer loss, 0.8 dB circulator loss, and 10 dBd antenna gain?

Select	Answer
A	2000 watts
B	126 watts
C	317 watts
D	300 watts

44. - E9B04

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

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

45. - E9C11

How is the far-field elevation pattern of a vertically polarized antenna affected by being mounted over seawater versus soil?

Select	Answer
A	The low-angle radiation increases
B	Additional higher vertical angle lobes will appear
C	Fewer vertical angle lobes will be present
D	The low-angle radiation decreases

46. - E9D12

Which of the following would provide the best RF ground for your station?

Select	Answer
A	An electrically short connection to 3 or 4 interconnected ground rods driven into the Earth
B	An electrically short connection to 3 or 4 interconnected ground rods via a series RF choke
C	A 50-ohm resistor connected to ground
D	An electrically short connection to a metal water pipe

47. - E9E06

Which of these feed line impedances would be suitable for constructing a quarter-wave Q-section for matching a 100-ohm loop to 50-ohm feed line?

Select	Answer
A	450 ohms
B	62 ohms
C	50 ohms
D	75 ohms

48. - E9F04

What impedance does a 1/2-wavelength transmission line present to a generator when the line is shorted at the far end?

Select	Answer
A	The same as the characteristic impedance of the line
B	The same as the output impedance of the generator
C	Very low impedance
D	Very high impedance

49. - E9G04

What are the two families of circles and arcs that make up a Smith chart?

Select	Answer
A	Reactance and voltage
B	Resistance and voltage
C	Resistance and reactance
D	Voltage and impedance

50. - E9H08

What is the function of a sense antenna?

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

Figure E7-1

Figure E7-2