Practice Exam

E5A12

1. What is the half-power bandwidth of a resonant circuit that has a resonant frequency of 3.7 MHz and a Q of 118?

• A. 218.3 kHz
• B. 31.4 kHz
• C. 15.7 kHz
• D. 436.6 kHz

E3B07

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

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

E3C02

3. What is indicated by a rising A-index or K-index?

• A. Increasing disturbance of the geomagnetic field
• B. An increase in the critical frequency
• C. Higher levels of solar UV radiation
• D. Decreasing disturbance of the geomagnetic field

E4D02

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

• A. Oscillator instability requiring frequent retuning and loss of ability to recover the opposite sideband
• B. Poor weak signal reception caused by insufficient local oscillator injection
• C. Oscillator instability and severe audio distortion of all but the strongest received signals
• D. Spurious signals caused by cross modulation and desensitization from strong adjacent signals

E6F03

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

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

E6D05

6. How do ferrite and powdered iron compare for use in an inductor core?

• A. Ferrite cores generally require fewer turns to produce a given inductance value
• B. Ferrite cores generally have better temperature stability
• C. Ferrite cores are easier to use with surface-mount technology
• D. Ferrite cores generally have lower initial permeability

E1C08

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

• A. 30 seconds
• B. 5 minutes
• C. 3 minutes
• D. 10 minutes

E8D05

8. What is the most common method of reducing key clicks?

• A. Insert low-pass filters at the transmitter output
• B. Reduce keying waveform rise and fall times
• C. Insert high-pass filters at the transmitter output
• D. Increase keying waveform rise and fall times

E8C12

9. What factors affect the bandwidth of a transmitted CW signal?

• A. IF bandwidth and Q
• B. All these choices are correct
• C. Keying speed and shape factor (rise and fall time)
• D. Modulation index and output power

E4E11

10. What could be the cause of local AM broadcast band signals combining to generate spurious signals on the MF or HF bands?

• A. One or more of the broadcast stations is transmitting an over-modulated signal
• B. Your station receiver IF amplifier stage is overloaded
• C. Nearby corroded metal connections are mixing and reradiating the broadcast signals
• D. You are receiving skywave signals from a distant station

E7H11

11. What are the major spectral impurity components of direct digital synthesizers?

• A. Spurious signals at discrete frequencies
• B. Harmonics of the local oscillator
• C. Digital conversion noise
• D. Broadband noise

E9F09

12. What impedance does a 1/4-wavelength transmission line present to an RF generator when the line is shorted at the far end?

• A. The same as the generator output impedance
• B. The same as the characteristic impedance of the transmission line
• C. Very high impedance
• D. Very low impedance

E4C13

13. What is reciprocal mixing?

• 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

E1F03

14. 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?

• A. The amplifier is constructed or modified by an amateur radio operator for use at an amateur station
• B. The equipment dealer assembled it from a kit
• C. Gain is less than 23 dB when driven by power of 10 watts or less
• D. It was manufactured and certificated in a country which has a reciprocal certification agreement with the FCC

E7F03

15. What type of digital signal processing filter is used to generate an SSB signal?

• A. An elliptical filter
• B. A notch filter
• C. An adaptive filter
• D. A Hilbert-transform filter

E9D03

16. What is the most efficient location for a loading coil on an electrically short whip?

• A. At a voltage maximum
• B. At a voltage null
• C. As low as possible on the vertical radiator
• D. Near the center of the vertical radiator

E1B07

17. To what type of regulations does PRB-1 apply?

• A. State and local zoning
• B. Homeowners associations
• C. Use of wireless devices in vehicles
• D. FAA tower height limits

E8A04

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

• A. An abnormal condition where the converter cannot settle on a value to represent the signal
• B. A small amount of noise added to the input signal to reduce quantization noise
• C. An error caused by irregular quantization step size
• D. A method of decimation by randomly skipping samples

E6C09

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

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

E5B07

20. What is the phase angle between the voltage across and the current through a series RLC circuit if XC is 500 ohms, R is 1 kilohm, and XL is 250 ohms?

• A. 14.0 degrees with the voltage lagging the current
• B. 68.2 degrees with the voltage lagging the current
• C. 14.0 degrees with the voltage leading the current
• D. 68.2 degrees with the voltage leading the current

E2E08

21. Which of the following HF digital modes can be used to transfer binary files?

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

E6E08

22. How is power supplied to the most common type of MMIC?

• A. Directly to the bias voltage (Vcc) lead
• B. Through a capacitor and RF choke connected to the amplifier input lead
• C. MMICs require no operating bias
• D. Through a resistor and/or RF choke connected to the amplifier output lead

E5C01

23. Which of the following represents pure capacitive reactance of 100 ohms in rectangular notation?

• A. 0 + j100
• B. 0 - j100
• C. 100 - j0
• D. 100 + j0

E1E10

24. What must the administering VEs do after the administration of a successful examination for an amateur operator license?

• A. They must collect and submit the documents to the coordinating VEC for grading
• B. They must return the documents to the applicant for submission to the FCC according to the FCC instructions
• C. They must submit the application document to the coordinating VEC according to the coordinating VEC instructions
• D. They must collect and send the documents directly to the FCC

E3A07

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

• A. Stratocumulus clouds
• B. Nimbus clouds
• C. Mountain ranges
• D. Large bodies of water

E1D06

26. What is the maximum permitted transmitter output power when operating a model craft by telecommand?

• A. 5 watts
• B. 2 watts
• C. 100 watts
• D. 1 watt

E7D14

27. What is the purpose of connecting equal-value resistors across power supply filter capacitors connected in series?

• A. Discharge the capacitors when voltage is removed
• B. Provide a minimum load on the supply
• C. Equalize the voltage across each capacitor
• D. All these choices are correct

E9E02

28. What antenna matching system matches coaxial cable to an antenna by connecting the shield to the center of the antenna and the conductor a fraction of a wavelength to one side?

• A. Delta match
• B. T-match
• C. Stub match
• D. Gamma match

E9G10

29. What do the arcs on a Smith chart represent?

• A. Points with constant reactance
• B. SWR
• C. Points with constant resistance
• D. Frequency

E4B04

30. Which S parameter represents input port return loss or reflection coefficient (equivalent to VSWR)?

• A. S21
• B. S12
• C. S11
• D. S22

E0A10

31. When must an RF exposure evaluation be performed on an amateur station operating on 80 meters?

• A. When the station's operating mode is CW
• B. When the ERP of the station is less than 10 watts
• C. When the output power from the transmitter is less than 100 watts
• D. An evaluation must always be performed

E7E03

32. What is a frequency discriminator?

• A. An automatic band-switching circuit
• B. A circuit for detecting FM signals
• C. A circuit for filtering closely adjacent signals
• D. An FM generator circuit

E2A07

33. Which of the following types of signals can be relayed through a linear transponder?

• A. FM and CW
• B. SSB and SSTV
• C. All these choices are correct
• D. PSK and packet

E8B04

34. What is the modulation index of an FM phone signal having a maximum carrier deviation of plus or minus 6 kHz if the highest modulating frequency is 2 kHz?

• A. 6
• B. 0.3
• C. 0.6
• D. 3

E6B05

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

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

E1A08

36. If a station in a message forwarding system inadvertently forwards a message that is in violation of FCC rules, who is primarily accountable for the rules violation?

• A. The control operators of all the stations in the system
• B. The control operator of the packet bulletin board station
• C. The control operator of the originating station
• D. The control operators of all the stations in the system not authenticating the source from which they accept communications

E2B02

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

• A. 525
• B. 30
• C. 60
• D. 1080

E2C10

38. Why do DX stations often transmit and receive on different frequencies?

• A. All these choices are correct
• B. To improve operating efficiency by reducing interference
• C. To separate the calling stations from the DX station
• D. Because the DX station may be transmitting on a frequency that is prohibited to some responding stations

E7C08

39. Which of the following is most frequently used as a band-pass or notch filter in VHF and UHF transceivers?

• A. A swinging choke filter
• B. A helical filter
• C. A Sallen-Key filter
• D. A finite impulse response filter

E6A06

40. What is the beta of a bipolar junction transistor?

• A. The switching speed
• 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 change in collector current with respect to the change in base current

E9A11

41. Which of the following determines ground losses for a ground-mounted vertical antenna operating on HF?

• A. Distance from the transmitter
• B. Soil conductivity
• C. Take-off angle
• D. The standing wave ratio

E9B01

42. What is the 3 dB beamwidth of the antenna radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-1?

• A. 25 degrees
• B. 30 degrees
• C. 75 degrees
• D. 50 degrees

E9C04

43. What happens to the radiation pattern of an unterminated long wire antenna as the wire length is increased?

• A. The elevation angle increases, and the front-to-rear ratio decreases
• B. The elevation angle increases, while the front-to-rear ratio is unaffected
• C. Fewer lobes form with the major lobes increasing closer to broadside to the wire
• D. Additional lobes form with major lobes increasingly aligned with the axis of the antenna

E9H01

44. When constructing a Beverage antenna, which of the following factors should be included in the design to achieve good performance at the desired frequency?

• A. It should be at least one wavelength long
• B. Its overall length must not exceed 1/4 wavelength
• C. It should be configured as a four-sided loop
• D. It must be mounted more than 1 wavelength above ground

E7G12

45. What is an operational amplifier?

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

E7B05

46. What can be done to prevent unwanted oscillations in an RF power amplifier?

• A. Tune both the input and output for maximum power
• B. Install parasitic suppressors and/or neutralize the stage
• C. Use a phase inverter in the output filter
• D. Tune the stage for minimum loading

E7A06

47. What is a characteristic of a monostable multivibrator?

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

E2D09

48. What type of modulation is used by JT65?

• A. QAM
• B. PSK
• C. Multitone AFSK
• D. RTTY

E4A01

49. Which of the following limits the highest frequency signal that can be accurately displayed on a digital oscilloscope?

• A. Analog-to-digital converter reference frequency
• B. Q of the circuit
• C. Sampling rate of the analog-to-digital converter
• D. All these choices are correct

E5D08

50. What is the primary cause of loss in film capacitors at RF?

• A. Self-discharge
• B. Inductance
• C. Dielectric loss
• D. Skin effect