FM Radio Quiz
April 1950 Radio & Television News Article

April 1950 Radio & Television News

[Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Radio & Television News, published 1919-1959. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.

FM (frequency modulated) radio certainly was a hot topic beginning in the middle to late 1940s. With the war out of the way, energies and resources were being redirected back to peacetime production. Major Edwin Armstrong announced his FM scheme in 1935, and as with many new inventions, it was met with skepticism by many who doubted his claim of static interference immunity. For many, it was a lack of understanding that caused the negative reaction, caused primarily by the increased level of sophistication of the transmitter and receiver circuitry. Amplitude modulation (AM) was so easy even a caveman could understand it, but adding phase relationships into the equation (literally) left many in the dust. This FM Radio Quiz from a 1950 issue of Radio & Television News magazine tests your grasp of frequency modulation principles.

FM Quiz

By Ed Bukstein

Northwestern Vocational Institute

1. On the commercial FM channels (88 to 108 mc.) , one hundred per-cent modulation is defined as a frequency deviation of plus and minus (a) 88 kc. (b) 21.75 kc. (c) 75 kc. (d) 25 kc.

2. If a commercial FM station produces a signal whose deviation is plus and minus 60 kc., its percentage of modulation is (a) 20% (b) 60% (c) 80% (d) 100%.

3. The rate at which the FM signal swings back and forth is deter-mined by the (a) amplitude of the audio signal (b) frequency of the audio signal (c) height of the antenna (d) effective radiated power.

4. The deviation of an FM signal increases when the amplitude of the audio signal (a) increases (b) decreases.

5. If a 30 kc. deviation is produced by a 5000 cycle audio signal, the modulation index is (a) 150 (b) 25,000 (c) 0.16 (d) 6.

6. The ratio of the maximum frequency deviation to the highest audio modulating frequency is called the (a) aspect ratio (b) deviation ratio (c) ratio detector.

7. If an FM signal having a deviation of plus and minus 2 kc. is fed successively through a frequency doubler and a frequency quadrupler, the output signal will have a frequency deviation of plus and minus (a) 6 kc. (b) 8 kc. (c) 16 kc. (d) 32 kc.

8. The circuit designed to remove any undesirable amplitude modulation from a frequency modulated signal is known as a (a) limiter (b) reactance modulator (c) voltage tripler.

9. In the circuit shown in Fig. 1, tube V, is a (a) reactance modulator (b) d.c. restorer (c) ratio detector (d) Wien bridge.

10. Tube V₁ of Fig. 1 behaves like (a) an inductance (b) a condenser.

11. The second detector of an FM receiver is more properly known as a (a) frequency modulator (b) frequency divider (c) frequency multiplier (d) discriminator.

12. The circuit shown in Fig. 2 is a (a) pre-emphasis filter (b) high-pass filter (c) de-emphasis filter.

13. As specified by the FCC, the pre-emphasis filter should have a time constant of (a) 25 (b) 75 (c) 500 (d) 10,000 microseconds.

14. If C of Fig. 2 has a value of 0.0015 microfarads, R should have a value of (a) 20,000 (b) 50,000 (c) 2,000,000 (d) 66 ohms.

15. An FM signal generator employing a motor-driven variable condenser is known as a (a) selsyn (b) PPI (c) rotating vector (d) wobbulator.

Quizzes from vintage electronics magazines such as Popular Electronics, Electronics-World, QST, and Radio News were published over the years - some really simple and others not so simple. Robert P. Balin created most of the quizzes for Popular Electronics. This is a listing of all I have posted thus far.

Answers To "FM Quiz"

1. c

2. e

3. b

4.a

5. d

6. b

7. c

8. a

9. a

10. a

11. d

12. c

13. b

14. b

15. d

Scoring Table

15 correct ... excellent

13 to 14 correct ...very good

10 to 12 correct ... good

8 to 9 correct ... fair

7 or less correct ... poor

Posted March 18, 2020