Practice Exam

E4C05

1. What does a receiver noise floor of -174 dBm represent?

• A. The receiver noise is 3 dB above theoretical minimum
• B. The noise figure of a 1 Hz bandwidth receiver
• C. The theoretical noise in a 1 Hz bandwidth at the input of a perfect receiver at room temperature
• D. The receiver noise is 6 dB above the theoretical minimum

E9G08

2. How is a Smith chart normalized?

• A. Reassign the prime center's impedance value
• B. Reassign the prime center to the reactance axis
• C. Reassign the reactance axis with resistance values
• D. Reassign the resistance axis with reactance values

E2B03

3. How is an interlaced scanning pattern generated in a fast-scan (NTSC) television system?

• A. By scanning each field from bottom-to-top
• B. By scanning two fields simultaneously
• C. By scanning lines from left-to-right in one field and right-to-left in the next
• D. By scanning odd-numbered lines in one field and even-numbered lines in the next

E9B04

4. What is the front-to-back ratio of the radiation pattern shown in Figure E9-2?

• A. 15 dB
• B. 3 dB
• C. 38 dB
• D. 28 dB

E7F02

5. What kind of digital signal processing audio filter is used to remove unwanted noise from a received SSB signal?

• A. A Hilbert-transform filter
• B. A crystal-lattice filter
• C. An adaptive filter
• D. A phase-inverting filter

E1D05

6. What must be posted at the location of a station being operated by telecommand on or within 50 kilometers of the Earth's surface?

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

E6D11

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

• A. Ferrite
• B. Ceramic
• C. Brass
• D. Aluminum

E9A06

8. What is the effective radiated power (ERP) 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?

• A. 2,000 watts
• B. 126 watts
• C. 300 watts
• D. 317 watts

E8C09

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

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

E4B06

10. 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. 112.5 watts
• B. 125 watts
• C. 100 watts
• D. 75 watts

E5A06

11. What is the magnitude of the circulating current within the components of a parallel LC circuit at resonance?

• A. It equals 2 times pi, times the square root of (inductance L multiplied by capacitance C)
• B. It is at a minimum
• C. It is at a maximum
• D. It equals 1 divided by the quantity 2 times pi, times the square root of (inductance L multiplied by capacitance C)

E1C02

12. Which of the following apply to communications transmitted to amateur stations in foreign countries?

• A. Third party traffic must be limited to that intended for the exclusive use of government and non-Government Organization (NGOs) involved in emergency relief activities
• B. Communications must be limited to those incidental to the purpose of the amateur service and remarks of a personal nature
• C. All these choices are correct
• D. All transmissions must be in English

E7A06

13. What is a characteristic of a monostable multivibrator?

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

E6B01

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

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

E9F03

15. Why is the electrical length of a coaxial cable longer than its physical length?

• A. Electromagnetic waves move faster in coaxial cable than in air
• B. Skin effect is more pronounced in the coaxial cable
• C. Electromagnetic waves move more slowly in a coaxial cable than in air
• D. Skin effect is less pronounced in the coaxial cable

E0A08

16. What does SAR measure?

• A. The rate at which RF energy is absorbed by the body
• B. Signal amplification rating
• C. Signal attenuation ratio
• D. The rate of RF energy reflected from stationary terrain

E2E01

17. Which of the following types of modulation is used for data emissions below 30 MHz?

• A. Spread spectrum
• B. FSK
• C. DTMF tones modulating an FM signal
• D. Pulse modulation

E7H06

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

• A. Frequency synthesis and FM demodulation
• B. Comparison of two digital input signals and digital pulse counting
• C. Photovoltaic conversion and optical coupling
• D. Wide-band AF and RF power amplification

E6C06

19. Why do CMOS digital integrated circuits have high immunity to noise on the input signal or power supply?

• A. The input switching threshold is about twice the power supply voltage
• B. Bandwidth is very limited
• C. The input switching threshold is about half the power supply voltage
• D. Large bypass capacitance is inherent

E8B06

20. What is the deviation ratio of an FM phone signal having a maximum frequency swing of plus or minus 7.5 kHz if the highest modulation frequency is 3.5 kHz?

• A. 0.214
• B. 2.14
• C. 47
• D. 0.47

E7B06

21. What is a characteristic of a grounded-grid amplifier?

• A. High electrostatic damage protection
• B. Low input impedance
• C. High power gain
• D. Low bandwidth

E9H02

22. Which is generally true for 160- and 80-meter receiving antennas?

• A. All these choices are correct
• B. Atmospheric noise is so high that directivity is much more important than losses
• C. Low loss coax transmission line is essential for good performance
• D. They must be erected at least 1/2 wavelength above the ground to attain good directivity

E6A02

23. Which of the following semiconductor materials contains excess free electrons?

• A. Bipolar
• B. Insulated gate
• C. P-type
• D. N-type

E1A02

24. When using a transceiver that displays the carrier frequency of phone signals, which of the following displayed frequencies represents the lowest frequency at which a properly adjusted LSB emission will be totally within the band?

• A. 1 kHz above the lower band edge
• B. 3 kHz above the lower band edge
• C. 300 Hz above the lower band edge
• D. The exact lower band edge

E3A03

25. When scheduling EME contacts, which of these conditions will generally result in the least path loss?

• A. When the MUF is above 30 MHz
• B. When the Moon is at apogee
• C. When the Moon is at perigee
• D. When the Moon is full

E2D06

26. Which of the following is a method for establishing EME contacts?

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

E9E02

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

E7E07

28. What is meant by the term "baseband" in radio communications?

• A. The frequency range occupied by a message signal prior to modulation
• B. The basic oscillator frequency in an FM transmitter that is multiplied to increase the deviation and carrier frequency
• C. The unmodulated bandwidth of the transmitted signal
• D. The lowest frequency band that the transmitter or receiver covers

E3B12

29. What is chordal-hop propagation?

• A. Successive ionospheric refractions without an intermediate reflection from the ground
• B. Signals reflected back toward the transmitting station
• C. Propagation across the geomagnetic equator
• D. Propagation away from the great circle bearing between stations

E3C08

30. Which of the following is the space-weather term for an extreme geomagnetic storm?

• A. M9
• B. B9
• C. X5
• D. G5

E4D01

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

E1B05

32. What is the National Radio Quiet Zone?

• A. An area surrounding the FCC monitoring station in Laurel, Maryland
• B. An area in New Mexico surrounding the White Sands Test Area
• C. An area in Florida surrounding Cape Canaveral
• D. An area surrounding the National Radio Astronomy Observatory

E6E07

33. What type of transmission line is often used for connections to MMICs?

• A. Miniature coax
• B. Microstrip
• C. Parallel wire
• D. Circular waveguide

E9C03

34. What type of radiation pattern is created by two 1/4-wavelength vertical antennas spaced 1/2- wavelength apart and fed in phase?

• A. A figure-eight end-fire along the axis of the array
• B. Cardioid
• C. Omni-directional
• D. A figure-eight broadside to the axis of the array

E9D08

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

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

E8D07

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

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

E2C05

37. What is the function of a DX QSL Manager?

• A. Handle the receiving and sending of confirmations for a DX station
• B. Run a net to allow many stations to contact a rare DX station
• C. Communicate to a DXpedition about propagation, band openings, pileup conditions, etc.
• D. Allocate frequencies for DXpeditions

E4A09

38. Which of the following is good practice when using an oscilloscope probe?

• A. Never use a DC-coupled probe to measure an AC circuit
• B. Minimize the length of the probe's ground connection
• C. All these choices are correct
• D. Never use a high-impedance probe to measure a low-impedance circuit

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

E7G02

40. What is the frequency response of the circuit in E7-3 if a capacitor is added across the feedback resistor?

• A. Band-pass filter
• B. Notch filter
• C. Low-pass filter
• D. High-pass filter

E6F11

41. What is the approximate open-circuit voltage produced by a fully illuminated silicon photovoltaic cell?

• A. 0.5 volts
• B. 0.7 volts
• C. 1.5 volts
• D. 1.1 volts

E8A01

42. What technique shows that a square wave is made up of a sine wave and its odd harmonics?

• A. Vector analysis
• B. Differential analysis
• C. Numerical analysis
• D. Fourier analysis

E5B01

43. What is the term for the time required for the capacitor in an RC circuit to be charged to 63.2% of the applied voltage or to discharge to 36.8% of its initial voltage?

• A. A time factor of one
• B. One time constant
• C. An exponential rate of one
• D. One exponential period

E2A10

44. What type of satellite appears to stay in one position in the sky?

• A. Geomagnetic
• B. HEO
• C. Geostationary
• D. LEO

E4E08

45. What current flows equally on all conductors of an unshielded multiconductor cable?

• A. Reactive current only
• B. Differential-mode current
• C. Common-mode current
• D. Magnetically-coupled current only

E1F11

46. 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 have received an Underwriters Laboratory certification for electrical safety as well as having met IEEE standard 14.101(B)
• B. It must produce full legal output when driven by not more than 5 watts of mean RF input power
• C. It must satisfy the FCC's spurious emission standards when operated at the lesser of 1500 watts or its full output power
• D. It must exhibit a gain of less than 23 dB when driven by 10 watts or less

E5D06

47. What parasitic characteristic creates an inductor's self-resonance?

• A. Inter-turn capacitance
• B. Dielectric loss
• C. Skin effect
• D. Coupling

E5C11

48. Which point in Figure E5-1 best represents the impedance of a series circuit consisting of a 300-ohm resistor and an 18-microhenry inductor at 3.505 MHz?

• A. Point 3
• B. Point 1
• C. Point 8
• D. Point 7

E7D01

49. How does a linear electronic voltage regulator work?

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

E1E07

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

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