Chapter 2: Radio-Frequency Circuits

MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. The time it takes a charge carrier to cross from the emitter to the collector is called:
a. base time
c. charge time
b. transit time
d. Miller time
ANS: B
2. A real capacitor actually contains:
a. capacitance and resistance only
b. capacitance and inductance only

c. capacitance, inductance, and resistance

d. reactance only

ANS: C
3. Bypass capacitors are used to:
a. remove RF from non-RF circuits
b. couple RF around an amplifier

c. neutralize amplifiers
d. reduce the Miller effect

ANS: A
4. A resonant circuit is:
a. a simple form of bandpass filter
b. used in narrowband RF amplifiers

c. both a and b
d. none of the above

ANS: C
5. Loading down a tuned-circuit amplifier will:
a. raise the Q of the tuned circuit
b. lower the Q of the tuned circuit

c. "multiply" the Q
d. have no effect on Q

ANS: B
6. The "Miller Effect" can:
a. cause an amplifier to oscillate
b. cause an amplifier to lose gain

c. reduce the bandwidth of an amplifier

d. all of the above

ANS: D
7. The Miller Effect can be avoided by:
a. using a common-emitter amplifier
b. using a common-base amplifier

c. increasing the Q of the tuned circuit

d. it cannot be avoided

ANS: B
8. In a BJT, the Miller Effect is due to:
a. inductance of collector lead
b. collector-to-emitter capacitance
ANS: D

c. base-to-emitter capacitance
d. base-to-collector capacitance

9. In RF amplifiers, impedance matching is usually done with:

a. RC coupling
c. direct coupling
b. transformer coupling
d. lumped reactance
ANS: B
10. Neutralization cancels unwanted feedback by:
a. adding feedback out of phase with the unwanted feedback
b. bypassing the feedback to the "neutral" or ground plane
c. decoupling it
d. none of the above
ANS: A
11. For a "frequency multiplier" to work, it requires:
a. a nonlinear circuit
b. a linear amplifier
c. a signal containing harmonics
d. an input signal that is an integer multiple of the desired frequency
ANS: A
12. A sinusoidal oscillation from an amplifier requires:
a. loop gain equal to unity
b. phase shift around loop equal to 0 degrees
c. both a and b, but at just one frequency
d. none of the above
ANS: C
13. The conditions for sinusoidal oscillation from an amplifier are called:
a. the loop-gain criteria
c. the Bode criteria
b. the Hartley criteria
d. the Barkhausen criteria
ANS: D
14. The Hartley oscillator uses:
a. a tapped inductor
b. a two-capacitor divider

c. an RC time constant
d. a piezoelectric crystal

ANS: A
15. The Colpitts VFO uses:
a. a tapped inductor
b. a two-capacitor divider

c. an RC time constant
d. a piezoelectric crystal

ANS: B
16. The Clapp oscillator is:
a. a modified Hartley oscillator
b. a modified Colpitts oscillator
ANS: B

c. a type of crystal-controlled oscillator

d. only built with FETs

17. A varactor is:

a. a voltage-controlled capacitor
b. a diode

c. used in tuner circuits

d. all of the above

ANS: D
18. Crystal-Controlled oscillators are:
a. used for a precise frequency
b. used for very low frequency drift (parts per million)
c. made by grinding quartz to exact dimensions
d. all of the above
ANS: D
19. If two signals, Va = sin(at) and Vb = sin(bt), are fed to a mixer, the output:
a. will contain 1 = a + b and 2 = a b
b. will contain 1 = a / b and 2 = b / a
c. will contain = (a + b ) / 2
d. none of the above
ANS: A
20. In a balanced mixer, the output:
a. contains equal (balanced) amounts of all input frequencies
b. contains the input frequencies
c. does not contain the input frequencies
d. is a linear mixture of the input signals
ANS: C
21. "VFO" stands for:
a. Voltage-Fed Oscillator
b. Variable-Frequency Oscillator

c. Varactor-Frequency Oscillator
d. Voltage-Feedback Oscillator

ANS: B
22. A "frequency synthesizer" is:
a. a VCO phase-locked to a reference frequency
b. a VFO with selectable crystals to change frequency
c. a fixed-frequency RF generator
d. same as a mixer
ANS: A
COMPLETION
1. Generally, conductor lengths in RF circuits should be ____________________.
ANS: short
2. At UHF frequencies and above, elements must be considered as ____________________ instead of as
being "lumped".

ANS: distributed
3. When one side of a double-sided pc board is used for ground, it is called a ____________________.
ANS: ground-plane
4. Interactions between parts of an RF circuit can be reduced by using ____________________ between
them.
ANS: shielding
5. In high-frequency RF circuits, the placement of wires and ____________________ can be critical.
ANS: components
6. A ____________________ circuit is used to remove RF from the DC voltage bus.
ANS: decoupling
7. A ____________________ capacitor is used to short unwanted RF to ground.
ANS: bypass
8. The bandwidth of a tuned-circuit amplifier depends on the ____________________ of the tuned circuit.
ANS: Q
9. A value of ____________________ or more for Q is required for the approximate tuned circuit equations
to be valid.
ANS: 10
10. In a class C RF amplifier, the ____________________ extracts one frequency from all the harmonics
contained in the device current (e.g. collector current).
ANS: tuned circuit
11. Using additional feedback to compensate for "stray" feedback is called ____________________.
ANS: neutralization
12. A Colpitts oscillator uses a ____________________ voltage divider to provide feedback.
ANS: capacitive
13. Electrically, a piezoelectric crystal has both a ____________________ and a ____________________
resonant frequency.
ANS: series, parallel

14. To produce sum and difference frequencies, a mixer must be a non-____________________ circuit.
ANS: linear
15. At some bias point, a diode or a transistor can act as a ____________________-law mixer.
ANS: square
SHORT ANSWER
1. What inductance would you use with a 47-pF capacitor to make a tuned circuit for 10 MHz?
ANS:
5.4 H
2. What value of Q is required for a 10-MHz tuned circuit to have a bandwidth of 100 kHz?
ANS:
100
3. A tuned-circuit amplifier with a gain of 10 is being used to make an oscillator. What should be the value
of the feedback ratio to satisfy the Barkhausen criteria?
ANS:
0.1
4. What is the advantage of a Clapp oscillator compared to a Colpitts oscillator?
ANS:
It is more stable because it "swamps" the device capacitance with large value capacitors in the feedback
divider.
5. If a varactor has a capacitance of 90 pF at zero volts, what will be the capacitance at 4 volts?
ANS:
30 pF
6. An oscillator has a frequency of 100 MHz at 20C, and a tempco of +10 ppm per degree Celsius. What
will be the shift in frequency at 70C? What percentage is that?
ANS:
50 kHz, 0.05%
7. Two sinusoidal signals, V1 and V2, are fed into an ideal balanced mixer. V1 is a 20-MHz signal; V2 is a 5MHz signal. What frequencies would you expect at the output of the mixer?
ANS:
15 MHz and 25 MHz

8. Suppose the phase-locked-loop frequency synthesizer of Figure 2.39 has a reference frequency of 1 MHz
and a fixed-modulus divider of 10. What should be the value of the programmable divider to get an output
frequency of 120 MHz?
ANS:
12