Practice Exam

E9C14

1. How does the radiation pattern of a horizontally-polarized antenna mounted above a long slope compare with the same antenna mounted above flat ground?

• A. The horizontal beamwidth increases in the uphill direction
• B. The main lobe takeoff angle decreases in the downhill direction
• C. The main lobe takeoff angle increases in the downhill direction
• D. The horizontal beamwidth decreases in the downhill direction

E5B04

2. What is the time constant of a circuit having two 220-microfarad capacitors and two 1-megohm resistors, all in parallel?

• A. 55 seconds
• B. 220 seconds
• C. 110 seconds
• D. 440 seconds

E2B06

3. What is vestigial sideband modulation?

• A. A type of modulation in which one sideband is inverted
• B. Amplitude modulation in which one complete sideband and a portion of the other are transmitted
• C. Spread spectrum modulation achieved by applying FM modulation following single sideband amplitude modulation
• D. Narrow-band FM modulation achieved by filtering one sideband from the audio before frequency modulating the carrier

E2A08

4. Why should effective radiated power (ERP) be limited to a satellite that uses a linear transponder?

• A. To prevent the satellite from emitting out-of-band signals
• B. To avoid reducing the downlink power to all other users
• C. To prevent creating errors in the satellite telemetry
• D. To avoid interfering with terrestrial QSOs

E3B07

5. What effect does lowering a signal's transmitted elevation angle have on ionospheric HF skip propagation?

• A. The critical frequency increases
• B. The MUF decreases
• C. Faraday rotation becomes stronger
• D. The distance covered by each hop increases

E8B08

6. What describes orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)?

• A. A frequency modulation technique that uses non-harmonically related frequencies
• B. A digital mode for narrow-band, slow-speed transmissions
• C. A bandwidth compression technique using Fourier transforms
• D. A digital modulation technique using subcarriers at frequencies chosen to avoid intersymbol interference

E7D01

7. How does a linear electronic voltage regulator work?

• A. The control element duty cycle is proportional to the line or load conditions
• B. The conduction of a control element is varied to maintain a constant output voltage
• C. It eliminates the need for a pass transistor
• D. It has a ramp voltage as its output

E1B01

8. Which of the following constitutes a spurious emission?

• A. Any transmitted signal that unintentionally interferes with another licensed radio station and whose levels exceed 40 dB below the fundamental power level
• B. An amateur station transmission made without the proper call sign identification
• C. A signal transmitted to prevent its detection by any station other than the intended recipient
• D. An emission outside the signal's necessary bandwidth that can be reduced or eliminated without affecting the information transmitted

E6A01

9. In what application is gallium arsenide used as a semiconductor material?

• A. In high-power audio circuits
• B. In very low-frequency RF circuits
• C. In microwave circuits
• D. In high-current rectifier circuits

E9A10

10. Which of the following improves the efficiency of a ground-mounted quarter-wave vertical antenna?

• A. Isolating the coax shield from ground
• B. Shortening the radiating element
• C. All these choices are correct
• D. Installing a ground radial system

E6E11

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

• A. Two chips in each package (dual in package)
• B. Extremely high resistance between pins (doubly insulated package)
• C. Two rows of connecting pins on opposite sides of package (dual in-line package)
• D. Extremely low stray capacitance (dielectrically isolated package)

E2D08

12. What type of packet frame is used to transmit APRS beacon data?

• A. Connect
• B. Acknowledgement
• C. Unnumbered Information
• D. Burst

E1F10

13. Who may be the control operator of an auxiliary station?

• A. Only Amateur Extra class operators
• B. Only Technician, General, Advanced, or Amateur Extra class operators
• C. Any licensed amateur operator
• D. Only General, Advanced, or Amateur Extra class operators

E8C09

14. Which digital code allows only one bit to change between sequential code values?

• A. Binary Coded Decimal Code
• B. Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code
• C. Extended ASCII
• D. Gray code

E2E09

15. Which of the following HF digital modes uses variable-length character coding?

• A. MT63
• B. PSK31
• C. PACTOR
• D. RTTY

E3C01

16. What is the cause of short-term radio blackouts?

• A. Solar flares
• B. Sunspots on the solar equator
• C. North-oriented interplanetary magnetic field
• D. Coronal mass ejections

E4C11

17. Why does input attenuation reduce receiver overload on the lower frequency HF bands with little or no impact on signal-to-noise ratio?

• A. Signals are attenuated separately from the noise
• B. Atmospheric noise is generally greater than internally generated noise even after attenuation
• C. The attenuator has a noise filter to suppress interference
• D. The attenuator has a low-pass filter to increase the strength of lower frequency signals

E9H11

18. What feature of a cardioid pattern antenna makes it useful for direction-finding antennas?

• A. Broadband response
• B. A very sharp peak
• C. High radiation angle
• D. A single null

E9F07

19. How does parallel conductor transmission line compare to coaxial cable with a plastic dielectric?

• A. Higher SWR
• B. Lower velocity factor
• C. Lower loss
• D. Smaller reflection coefficient

E5C02

20. How are impedances described in polar coordinates?

• A. By magnitude and phase angle
• B. By Y and G values
• C. By real and imaginary parts
• D. By X and R values

E4E10

21. Which of the following can create intermittent loud roaring or buzzing AC line interference?

• A. Arcing contacts in a thermostatically controlled device
• B. All these choices are correct
• C. A defective doorbell or doorbell transformer inside a nearby residence
• D. A malfunctioning illuminated advertising display

E5A10

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

• A. 23.5 MHz
• B. 7.12 kHz
• C. 23.5 kHz
• D. 7.12 MHz

E8D08

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

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

E6F02

24. What happens to photoconductive material when light shines on it?

• A. Resistance decreases
• B. Resistance increases
• C. Reflectivity decreases
• D. Reflectivity increases

E5D11

25. How much real power is consumed in a circuit consisting of a 100-ohm resistor in series with a 100-ohm inductive reactance drawing 1 ampere?

• A. 70.7 watts
• B. 141.4 watts
• C. 100 watts
• D. 200 watts

E4D01

26. What is meant by the blocking dynamic range of a receiver?

• A. The difference in dB between the noise floor and the third-order intercept point
• B. The minimum difference in dB between two signals which produce third-order intermodulation products greater than the noise floor
• C. The difference in dB between the noise floor and the level of an incoming signal that will cause 1 dB of gain compression
• D. The minimum difference in dB between the levels of two FM signals that will cause one signal to block the other

E4A11

27. Which of the following can be measured with an antenna analyzer?

• A. Resonant frequency of a tuned circuit
• B. Velocity factor
• C. All these choices are correct
• D. Cable length

E6C09

28. What is used to design the configuration of a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)?

• A. An auto-router
• B. Machine and assembly language
• C. Karnaugh maps
• D. Hardware description language (HDL)

E7F09

29. Why is an anti-aliasing filter required in a decimator?

• A. It removes high-frequency signal components that would otherwise be reproduced as lower frequency components
• B. It peaks the response of the decimator, improving bandwidth
• C. It removes low-frequency signal components to eliminate the need for DC restoration
• D. It notches out the sampling frequency to avoid sampling errors

E6B01

30. What is the most useful characteristic of a Zener diode?

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

E4B06

31. How much power is being absorbed by the load when a directional power meter connected between a transmitter and a terminating load reads 100 watts forward power and 25 watts reflected power?

• A. 125 watts
• B. 75 watts
• C. 100 watts
• D. 112.5 watts

E1A05

32. Who must be in physical control of the station apparatus of an amateur station aboard any vessel or craft that is documented or registered in the United States?

• A. Only a person named in an amateur station license grant
• B. Only a person with an FCC Marine Radio license grant
• C. Any person holding an FCC issued amateur license or who is authorized for alien reciprocal operation
• D. Any person named in an amateur station license grant or a person holding an unrestricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit

E9E06

33. Which of these transmission line impedances would be suitable for constructing a quarter-wave Q-section for matching a 100-ohm feed point impedance to a 50-ohm transmission line?

• A. 50 ohms
• B. 62 ohms
• C. 90 ohms
• D. 75 ohms

E6D12

34. What causes inductor saturation?

• A. Operation at excessive magnetic flux
• B. Selecting a core with low permeability
• C. Operation at too high a frequency
• D. Selecting a core with excessive permittivity

E9B10

35. What is the principle of a Method of Moments analysis?

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

E3A09

36. Which of the following frequency ranges is most suited for meteor-scatter communications?

• A. 10 MHz - 14 MHz
• B. 1.8 MHz - 1.9 MHz
• C. 220 MHz - 450 MHz
• D. 28 MHz - 148 MHz

E9D07

37. What is an advantage of top loading an electrically short HF vertical antenna?

• A. Lower Q
• B. Higher losses
• C. Improved radiation efficiency
• D. Greater structural strength

E1C10

38. What is the maximum mean power level for a spurious emission below 30 MHz with respect to the fundamental emission?

• A. - 53 dB
• B. - 73 dB
• C. - 63 dB
• D. - 43 dB

E7H05

39. How is positive feedback supplied in a Pierce oscillator?

• A. Through a quartz crystal
• B. Through a neutralizing capacitor
• C. Through link coupling
• D. Through a tapped coil

E7E11

40. Which type of detector is used for demodulating SSB signals?

• A. Phase detector
• B. Phase comparator
• C. Product detector
• D. Discriminator

E7A06

41. What is a characteristic of a monostable multivibrator?

• A. It stores one bit of data
• B. It maintains a constant output voltage, regardless of variations in the input voltage
• C. It produces a continuous square wave
• D. It switches temporarily to an alternate state for a set time

E1E09

42. What may be the penalty for a VE who fraudulently administers or certifies an examination?

• A. Revocation of the VE's amateur station license grant and the suspension of the VE's amateur operator license grant
• B. All these choices are correct
• C. A fine of up to $1,000 per occurrence
• D. A sentence of up to one year in prison

E7G08

43. How does the gain of an ideal operational amplifier vary with frequency?

• A. It decreases logarithmically with increasing frequency
• B. It decreases linearly with increasing frequency
• C. It does not vary with frequency
• D. It increases linearly with increasing frequency

E7B03

44. What circuit is required at the output of an RF switching amplifier?

• A. A temperature compensating load resistor to improve linearity
• B. A high-pass filter to compensate for low gain at low frequencies
• C. A matched load resistor to prevent damage by switching transients
• D. A filter to remove harmonic content

E9G07

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

• A. The voltage axis
• B. The reactance axis
• C. The current axis
• D. The resistance axis

E2C09

46. What type of equipment is commonly used to implement an amateur radio mesh network?

• A. A 2-meter VHF transceiver with a 1,200-baud modem
• B. A 440 MHz transceiver with a 9,600-baud modem
• C. A computer running EchoLink to provide interface from the radio to the internet
• D. A wireless router running custom firmware

E0A06

47. Why are there separate electric (E) and magnetic (H) MPE limits at frequencies below 300 MHz?

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

E8A05

48. What is the benefit of making voltage measurements with a true-RMS calculating meter?

• A. The calculated RMS value can be converted directly into phasor form
• B. RMS is measured for both sinusoidal and non-sinusoidal signals
• C. The signal's RMS noise factor is also calculated
• D. An inverse Fourier transform can be used

E1D09

49. Which UHF amateur bands have frequencies authorized for space stations?

• A. 70 centimeters and 33 centimeters
• B. 70 centimeters only
• C. 33 centimeters and 13 centimeters
• D. 70 centimeters and 13 centimeters

E7C06

50. What are the characteristics of an elliptical filter?

• A. Extremely flat response over its pass band with gradually rounded stop-band corners
• B. Gradual passband rolloff with extreme stop-band ripple
• C. Gradual passband rolloff with minimal stop-band ripple
• D. Extremely sharp cutoff with one or more notches in the stop band