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Practice

Operating Procedures — Practice

What you actually say and do on the air, and how to do it well. Untimed topic practice with a full explanation after every question, so a wrong answer becomes a study note rather than a dead end.

Questions

12

Time limit

Untimed

Pass mark

60%

Before you start

  • Untimed. The explanation appears as soon as you answer, because the point here is to learn rather than to score.
  • Mark an answer as a guess and it enters your review queue even if it happened to be right.
  • Every answer moves your ability estimate for that topic and updates your readiness score.
  • Retake as often as you like.

Sample questions

Before calling CQ on a frequency, what should an operator do first?

  • Increase power to maximum
  • Listen to check the frequency is not already in use, and ask whether it is in use
  • Call CQ immediately to claim the frequency
  • Switch to a different band

Why Listen to check the frequency is not alr… is right: Listening first, then asking whether the frequency is in use, avoids causing interference to a contact you may not be able to hear. It is the single most basic courtesy in operating practice.

In a simplex contact, the two stations:

  • transmit and receive on the same frequency, taking turns
  • transmit and receive on different frequencies simultaneously
  • communicate through a repeater
  • must both use CW

Why transmit and receive on the same frequen… is right: Simplex means one frequency shared in both directions, so only one station transmits at a time. Repeater operation instead uses separate input and output frequencies.

Why does a repeater transmit and receive on two different frequencies?

  • To use less power
  • So it can receive and retransmit at the same time without desensitising itself
  • To comply with the phonetic alphabet
  • To avoid using a duplexer

Why So it can receive and retransmit at the … is right: A repeater listens and transmits simultaneously. Separating the input and output frequencies by a standard offset, together with a duplexer, keeps its own powerful transmitter from swamping its receiver.