08/04/2008 1. 234
a. The length of a 40-meter quarter-wave stub of open-wire line.
b. The product of frequency to feet for a quarter-wavelength ground plane antenna.
c. The number of North American IOTA island groups.
d. Yellow-orange-red.

2. 3 kHz
a. How far below 14.350 MHz the carrier of a USB signal should be.
b. The average upper frequency limit of the average ham's hearing.
c. The bandwidth of a CLOVER signal running at maximum baud.
d. The deviation limit for amateur FM signals.

3. OO
a. A popular award program from Oman.
b. The CW abbreviation for "Over and Out."
c. What you say when you receive an FCC "pink slip."
d. Ham radio's friendly observer corps.

4. 66 percent
a. The velocity factor of propagation in RG-58/U coaxial cable compared to free space.
b. The ratio of carrier to sideband power in FM signals.
c. The ratio of Extra Class to Technician amateur licensees.
d. The maximum safe-to-rated power dissipation for wirewound resistors.

5. Center frequency divided by bandwidth
a. The Q-factor of a tuned circuit.
b. Modulation index
c. Carson's Rule
d. Filter shape factor

6. 3rd Order
a. The last time you try an order before giving up.
b. Intermodulation products created near the frequency of the originating signals.
c. Another name for parasitic capacitance or inductance.
d. The rank of an Amateur Extra class licensee who has experienced three solar cycles.

7. Gold
a. The color of an 3-500Z anode at full rated power.
b. The required surface metal for RF conductors at microwave frequencies.
c. The worth of a new transceiver by weight.
d. Five percent tolerance band color for resistors.

8. Split
a. Transformer core configuration
b. A common DX operating technique.
c. What to do after accidentally QRMing a net.
d. The original term for a dipole antenna.

9. Unbalanced
a. Another term for elliptical polarization.
b. AB-class amplifier operation.
c. A load with one terminal connected to the system ground.
d. Digital protocols that don't require full-duplex operation.

10. 300
a. The speed of light in millions of meters per second.
b. The number of QSLs required for the 5 Band Worked All States (5BWAS) award.
c. The length in mm of a 10 meter quarter-wave whip.
d. The number of kHz in the General Class segment of 10-meters.

11. ERP
a. Brother to Wyatt, an early radio pioneer.
b. The result of ingesting too much snack food during Field Day.
c. An acronym for EmComm Radio Protocol.
d. How the power limit on the 60 meter band is specified.

12. PL
a. An abbreviation for "powered load."
b. The Motorola trademark for CTCSS system.
c. The prefix for amateurs in Papua-New Guinea.
d. The designation for "pirate" used by DXCC administrators.

13. ACK
a. The method of cable lacing -- wrap twice, ack thrice.
b. The noise made when discharging a capacitor.
c. The digital control character indicating "data received okay."
d. The acronym for Amateur Code Klub.

14. Ugerumph
a. The response to posting a DX spot for a bootleg station.
b. The onomatopoeia for the sound of a paper tape reader.
c. The companion device to the dreaded Wouff Hong and Rettysnitch.
d. The Frankford Radio Club's initiation ceremony.

15. Three
a. The number of Volunteer Examiners required to administer an exam.
b. A QSL can be submitted for Worked All Continents (WAC) this many times before being discarded.
c. There are this many types of signal modulation.
d. The number of states in ARRL's New England Division.

Bonus Question -- 1923

Answers

1. b -- Know this ratio by heart!
2. a -- A USB signal's carrier, displayed by the transceiver, is just the lower edge of the signal!
3. d -- Official Observers are the backbone of Amateur Radio's self-policing history.
4. a -- Most coaxial cables with a polyethylene center insulator have this velocity factor.
5. a -- The lower the resistive loss for the circuit's components, the sharper the frequency response becomes.
6. b -- 3rd order products are the most troublesome because they are strong and close to the frequency of the signals creating the intermodulation
7. d -- Silver indicates 10 percent value tolerance, gold 5 percent and no band 20 percent.
8. b -- DX stations often transmit on a single frequency, while listening one or more kHz away to help speed things along (answer c isn't too bad, either...).
9. c -- Baluns (balanced-to-unbalanced transformers) are often used to drive these loads.
10. a -- This is also the product of wavelength in meters and frequency in MHz.
11. d -- Amateurs are limited to 50 W ERP (Effective Radiated Power) on 60 meters
12. b -- Motorola pioneered the commercial use of sub-audible tones to control a receiver's audio.
13. c - ACK is short for "Acknowledge"
14. c -- There is no truth to the rumor that the Ugerumph can bore a hole in the F-layer
15. a -- More may be present, but at least this many are required to hold an exam session

Bonus Answer -- The year of the first amateur trans-Atlantic QSOs, Nov 25, 1923