Practice Exam

E3A06

1. What might help to restore contact when DX signals become too weak to copy across an entire HF band a few hours after sunset?

• A. Wait 90 minutes or so for the signal degradation to pass
• B. Wait 24 hours before attempting another communication on the band
• C. Switch to a lower frequency HF band
• D. Switch to a higher frequency HF band

E8B09

2. What is deviation ratio?

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

E7B07

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

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

E1F11

4. Which of the following best describes one of the standards that must be met by an external RF power amplifier if it is to qualify for a grant of FCC certification?

• A. It must satisfy the FCC's spurious emission standards when operated at the lesser of 1500 watts or its full output power
• B. It must exhibit a gain of 0 dB or less over its full output range
• C. It must be capable of external RF switching between its input and output networks
• D. It must produce full legal output when driven by not more than 5 watts of mean RF input power

E1D08

5. Which VHF amateur bands have frequencies authorized for space stations?

• A. 6 meters and 2 meters
• B. 2 meters
• C. 2 meters and 1.25 meters
• D. 6 meters, 2 meters, and 1.25 meters

E1E07

6. What should a VE do if a candidate fails to comply with the examiner's instructions during an amateur operator license examination?

• A. Warn the candidate that continued failure to comply will result in termination of the examination
• B. Immediately terminate everyone's examination and close the session
• C. Allow the candidate to complete the examination, but invalidate the results
• D. Immediately terminate the candidate's examination

E8D07

7. What is a common cause of overmodulation of AFSK signals?

• A. Excessive numbers of retries
• B. Bit errors in the modem
• C. Excessive transmit audio levels
• D. Ground loops

E7D02

8. What is a characteristic of a switching electronic voltage regulator?

• A. It is generally less efficient than a linear regulator
• B. It gives a ramp voltage at its output
• C. The controlled device's duty cycle is changed to produce a constant average output voltage
• D. The resistance of a control element is varied in direct proportion to the line voltage or load current

E1C01

9. What is the maximum bandwidth for a data emission on 60 meters?

• A. 170 Hz
• B. 1.5 kHz
• C. 2.8 kHz
• D. 60 Hz

E6A06

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

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

E2A04

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

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

E5B07

12. 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. 14.0 degrees with the voltage leading the current
• C. 68.2 degrees with the voltage lagging the current
• D. 68.2 degrees with the voltage leading the current

E7C09

13. What is a crystal lattice filter?

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

E9B09

14. What type of computer program technique is commonly used for modeling antennas?

• A. Calculus differentiation with respect to physical properties
• B. Mutual impedance analysis
• C. Method of Moments
• D. Graphical analysis

E2E05

15. Which of these digital modes does not support keyboard-to-keyboard operation?

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

E3C12

16. How does the maximum range of ground-wave propagation change when the signal frequency is increased?

• A. It stays the same
• B. It increases
• C. It peaks at roughly 14 MHz
• D. It decreases

E3B06

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

• A. 6 meters
• B. 20 meters
• C. 80 meters
• D. 10 meters

E7F09

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

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

E2D06

19. Which of the following describes a method of establishing EME contacts?

• A. Judging optimum transmission times by monitoring beacons reflected from the moon
• B. High-speed CW identification to avoid fading
• C. Storing and forwarding digital messages
• D. Time synchronous transmissions alternately from each station

E6C09

20. What is a Programmable Logic Device (PLD)?

• A. Programmable equipment used for testing digital logic integrated circuits
• B. A type of transistor whose gain can be changed by digital logic circuits
• C. A programmable collection of logic gates and circuits in a single integrated circuit
• D. A logic circuit that can be modified during use

E9D08

21. What happens as the Q of an antenna increases?

• A. Gain is reduced
• B. SWR bandwidth increases
• C. SWR bandwidth decreases
• D. More common-mode current is present on the feed line

E7E11

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

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

E9A07

23. 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?

• A. 63.2 watts
• B. 632 watts
• C. 159 watts
• D. 252 watts

E6D11

24. Which type of core material decreases inductance when inserted into a coil?

• A. Brass
• B. Ferrite
• C. Ceramic
• D. Powdered iron

E9G04

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

• A. Resistance and reactance
• B. Voltage and impedance
• C. Resistance and voltage
• D. Reactance and voltage

E1B10

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

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

E9F01

27. What is the velocity factor of a transmission line?

• A. The index of shielding for coaxial cable
• B. The velocity of the wave in the transmission line divided by the velocity of light in a vacuum
• C. The velocity of the wave in the transmission line multiplied by the velocity of light in a vacuum
• D. The ratio of the characteristic impedance of the line to the terminating impedance

E4C12

28. Which of the following has the largest effect on an SDR receiver's dynamic range?

• A. Analog-to-digital converter sample width in bits
• B. Anti-aliasing input filter bandwidth
• C. RAM speed used for data storage
• D. CPU register width in bits

E2C10

29. Why might a DX station state that they are listening on another frequency?

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

E6B05

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

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

E9E03

31. What is the name of the matching system that uses a section of transmission line connected in parallel with the feed line at or near the feed point?

• A. The omega match
• B. The delta match
• C. The stub match
• D. The gamma match

E6E12

32. Why are DIP through-hole package ICs not typically used at UHF and higher frequencies?

• A. Epoxy coating is conductive above 300 MHz
• B. Excessive lead length
• C. Unsuitable for combining analog and digital signals
• D. Too many pins

E6F01

33. What absorbs the energy from light falling on a photovoltaic cell?

• A. Protons
• B. Holes
• C. Electrons
• D. Photons

E7A01

34. Which circuit is bistable?

• A. A flip-flop
• B. An OR gate
• C. A bipolar amplifier
• D. An AND gate

E0A04

35. When evaluating a site with multiple transmitters operating at the same time, the operators and licensees of which transmitters are responsible for mitigating over-exposure situations?

• A. Only commercial transmitters
• B. Each transmitter operating with a duty cycle greater than 50 percent
• C. Each transmitter that produces 5 percent or more of its MPE limit in areas where the total MPE limit is exceeded.
• D. Only the most powerful transmitter

E7G02

36. What is ringing in a filter?

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

E4E07

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

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

E2B06

38. What is vestigial sideband modulation?

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

E5D14

39. What is reactive power?

• A. Power consumed in circuit Q
• B. Power consumed in wire resistance in an inductor
• C. Wattless, nonproductive power
• D. Power lost because of capacitor leakage

E9H10

40. How can the output voltage of a multiple-turn receiving loop antenna be increased?

• A. By winding adjacent turns in opposing directions
• B. By reducing the permeability of the loop shield
• C. By utilizing high impedance wire for the coupling loop
• D. By increasing the number of turns and/or the area

E8A11

41. Which of the following is a measure of the quality of an analog-to-digital converter?

• A. Peak envelope power
• B. Total harmonic distortion
• C. Reciprocal mixing
• D. Power factor

E5A14

42. What is the resonant frequency of an RLC circuit if R is 22 ohms, L is 50 microhenries and C is 40 picofarads?

• A. 3.56 MHz
• B. 22.36 MHz
• C. 1.78 MHz
• D. 44.72 MHz

E7H03

43. How is positive feedback supplied in a Hartley oscillator?

• A. Through a neutralizing capacitor
• B. Through a tapped coil
• C. Through link coupling
• D. Through a capacitive divider

E9C11

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

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

E4A08

45. Which of the following measures SWR?

• A. An antenna analyzer
• B. A spectrum analyzer
• C. An ohmmeter
• D. A Q meter

E4B11

46. Which of the following can be measured with a vector network analyzer?

• A. Reflection coefficient
• B. Input impedance
• C. Output impedance
• D. All these choices are correct

E1A03

47. What is the maximum legal carrier frequency on the 20 meter band for transmitting USB AFSK digital signals having a 1 kHz bandwidth?

• A. 14.070 MHz
• B. 14.100 MHz
• C. 14.349 MHz
• D. 14.149 MHz

E5C04

48. What coordinate system is often used to display the resistive, inductive, and/or capacitive reactance components of impedance?

• A. Faraday grid
• B. Elliptical coordinates
• C. Maidenhead grid
• D. Rectangular coordinates

E8C09

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

• A. Excess 3 code
• B. Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code
• C. Gray code
• D. Binary Coded Decimal Code

E4D06

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

• A. Neutralization
• B. Amplifier desensitization
• C. Adjacent channel interference
• D. Intermodulation