Practice Exam

E9H02

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

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

E4C11

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

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

E4D05

3. What transmitter frequencies would create an intermodulation-product signal in a receiver tuned to 146.70 MHz when a nearby station transmits on 146.52 MHz?

• A. 146.30 MHz and 146.90 MHz
• B. 146.10 MHz and 147.30 MHz
• C. 146.88 MHz and 146.34 MHz
• D. 146.34 MHz and 146.61 MHz

E5A08

4. What is the phase relationship between the current through and the voltage across a series resonant circuit at resonance?

• A. The voltage and current are in phase
• B. The voltage leads the current by 90 degrees
• C. The current leads the voltage by 90 degrees
• D. The voltage and current are 180 degrees out of phase

E4E01

5. What problem can occur when using an automatic notch filter (ANF) to remove interfering carriers while receiving CW signals?

• A. Any nearby signal passing through the DSP system will overwhelm the desired signal
• B. Removal of the CW signal as well as the interfering carrier
• C. All these choices are correct
• D. Excessive ringing

E9A06

6. 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. 126 watts
• B. 2,000 watts
• C. 317 watts
• D. 300 watts

E9B08

7. What is the far field of an antenna?

• A. The region where radiated power dissipates over a specified time period
• B. The region where the shape of the radiation pattern no longer varies with distance
• C. The region of the ionosphere where radiated power is not refracted
• D. The region where radiated field strengths are constant

E9E08

8. What is a use for a Wilkinson divider?

• A. To feed high-impedance antennas from a low-impedance source
• B. To divide power equally between two 50-ohm loads while maintaining 50-ohm input impedance
• C. To divide the frequency of the input to a counter to increase its frequency range
• D. To divide the operating frequency of a transmitter signal so it can be used on a lower frequency band

E8C03

9. Why should the phase of a PSK signal be changed at the zero crossing of the RF signal?

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

E4B04

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

• A. S22
• B. S12
• C. S11
• D. S21

E7A02

11. What is the function of a decade counter?

• A. It decodes a decimal number for display on a seven-segment LED display
• B. It produces 10 output pulses for every input pulse
• C. It produces one output pulse for every 10 input pulses
• D. It decodes a binary number for display on a seven-segment LED display

E2B09

12. What kind of receiver can be used to receive and decode SSTV using the Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) protocol?

• A. CDMA
• B. SSB
• C. AREDN
• D. AM

E5D11

13. 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. 200 watts
• C. 100 watts
• D. 141.4 watts

E2D05

14. What is the characteristic of the JT65 mode?

• A. Uses only a 65 Hz bandwidth
• B. Symbol rate is 65 baud
• C. Decodes signals with a very low signal-to-noise ratio
• D. Permits fast-scan TV transmissions over narrow bandwidth

E8A09

15. How many different input levels can be encoded by an analog-to-digital converter with 8-bit resolution?

• A. 8
• B. 8 multiplied by the gain of the input amplifier
• C. 256 divided by the gain of the input amplifier
• D. 256

E1F07

16. When may an amateur station send a message to a business?

• A. When neither the amateur nor their employer has a pecuniary interest in the communications
• B. When the pecuniary interest of the amateur or his or her employer is less than $50
• C. At no time
• D. When the pecuniary interest of the amateur or his or her employer is less than $25

E1C03

17. How long must an operator wait after filing a notification with the Utilities Technology Council (UTC) before operating on the 2200-meter or 630-meter band?

• A. Operations may commence immediately, and may continue unless interference is reported by the UTC
• B. Operators must not operate until approval is received
• C. Operators may not operate until a test signal has been transmitted in coordination with the local power company
• D. Operators may operate after 30 days, providing they have not been told that their station is within 1 kilometer of PLC systems using those frequencies

E6F03

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

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

E7H09

19. What type of frequency synthesizer circuit uses a phase accumulator, lookup table, digital-to-analog converter, and a low-pass anti-alias filter?

• A. A direct conversion synthesizer
• B. A direct digital synthesizer
• C. A hybrid synthesizer
• D. A phase-locked loop synthesizer

E6E01

20. Why is gallium arsenide (GaAs) useful for semiconductor devices operating at UHF and higher frequencies?

• A. Higher electron mobility
• B. Lower junction voltage drop
• C. Higher noise figures
• D. Lower transconductance

E7C10

21. Which of the following filters is used in a 2-meter band repeater duplexer?

• A. A crystal filter
• B. A cavity filter
• C. A DSP filter
• D. An L-C filter

E1D06

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

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

E2E01

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

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

E7D02

24. How does a switchmode voltage regulator work?

• A. By varying the duty cycle of pulses input to a filter
• B. By varying the conductivity of a pass element
• C. By alternating the output between positive and negative voltages
• D. By switching between two Zener diode reference voltages

E0A07

25. What is meant by "100% tie-off" regarding tower safety?

• A. All loose ropes and guys secured to a fixed structure
• B. All circuit breakers feeding power to the tower must be tied closed with tape, cable, or ties
• C. All tools secured to the climber's harness
• D. At least one lanyard attached to the tower at all times

E3A13

26. Which of these emission modes is best for auroral propagation?

• A. SSB
• B. RTTY
• C. FM
• D. CW

E7B06

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

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

E6A01

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

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

E9C11

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

• A. Radiation at low angles decreases
• B. Radiation at low angles increases
• C. Separate elevation lobes will combine into a single lobe
• D. Additional lobes appear at higher elevation angles

E9D07

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

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

E6B07

31. What causes a junction diode to fail from excessive current?

• A. Insufficient forward voltage
• B. Excessive junction temperature
• C. Excessive inverse voltage
• D. Charge carrier depletion

E2C02

32. Which of the following file formats is used for exchanging amateur radio log data?

• A. NEC
• B. OCF
• C. ADIF
• D. ARLD

E4A05

33. What is the purpose of using a prescaler with a frequency counter?

• A. Reduce the signal frequency to within the counter's operating range
• B. Amplify low-level signals for more accurate counting
• C. Prevent oscillation in a low-frequency counter circuit
• D. Multiply a higher frequency signal so a low-frequency counter can display the operating frequency

E3C06

34. How does the VHF/UHF radio horizon compare to the geographic horizon?

• A. They are approximately the same
• B. It is approximately 20 percent nearer
• C. It is approximately 15 percent farther
• D. It is approximately 50 percent farther

E9G07

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

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

E6C04

36. Which of the following is an advantage of BiCMOS logic?

• A. It is immune to electrostatic damage
• B. All these choices are correct
• C. Its simplicity results in much less expensive devices than standard CMOS
• D. It has the high input impedance of CMOS and the low output impedance of bipolar transistors

E5C02

37. 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

E7F03

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

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

E3B09

39. At what time of year is sporadic-E propagation most likely to occur?

• A. Around the solstices, especially the winter solstice
• B. Around the equinoxes, especially the spring equinox
• C. Around the solstices, especially the summer solstice
• D. Around the equinoxes, especially the fall equinox

E8D03

40. Which describes spread spectrum frequency hopping?

• A. A binary bit stream is used to shift the phase of an RF carrier very rapidly in a pseudorandom sequence
• B. RF signals are clipped to generate a wide band of harmonics which provides redundancy to correct errors
• C. Rapidly varying the frequency of a transmitted signal according to a pseudorandom sequence
• D. If interference is detected by the receiver, it will signal the transmitter to change frequencies

E5B07

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

E7E09

42. What occurs when the input signal levels to a mixer are too high?

• A. Mixer blanking occurs
• B. Automatic limiting occurs
• C. Spurious mixer products are generated
• D. Excessive AGC voltage levels are generated

E1A08

43. 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 operators of all the stations in the system not authenticating the source from which they accept communications
• D. The control operator of the originating station

E8B07

44. Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a technique used for which types of amateur communication?

• A. Extremely low-power contacts
• B. OFDM signals are not allowed on amateur bands
• C. EME
• D. Digital modes

E1B02

45. Which of the following is an acceptable bandwidth for digital voice or slow-scan TV transmissions made on the HF amateur bands?

• A. 10 kHz
• B. 20 kHz
• C. 3 kHz
• D. 15 kHz

E7G11

46. What absolute voltage gain can be expected from the circuit in Figure E7-3 when R1 is 3,300 ohms and RF is 47 kilohms?

• A. 0.07
• B. 28
• C. 7
• D. 14

E6D03

47. Which of the following is an aspect of the piezoelectric effect?

• A. Mechanical deformation of material due to the application of a magnetic field
• B. Generation of electrical energy in the presence of light
• C. Increased conductivity in the presence of light
• D. Mechanical deformation of material due to the application of a voltage

E9F04

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

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

E2A12

49. What is the purpose of digital store-and-forward functions on an amateur radio satellite?

• A. To hold digital messages in the satellite for later download
• B. To delay download of telemetry between satellites
• C. To upload operational software for the transponder
• D. To relay messages between satellites

E1E03

50. What is a Volunteer Examiner Coordinator?

• A. An organization paid by the volunteer examiner team to publicize and schedule examinations
• B. The person who has entered into an agreement with the FCC to be the VE session manager
• C. An organization that has entered into an agreement with the FCC to coordinate, prepare, and administer amateur operator license examinations
• D. A person who has volunteered to administer amateur operator license examinations