Electronic Alphabet Quiz
May1963 Popular Electronics

May 1963 Popular Electronics

May 1963 Popular Electronics Cover - RF CafeTable of Contents

Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Popular Electronics, published October 1954 - April 1985. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.

This "Electronic Alphabet Quiz" from a 1963 issue of Popular Electronics magazine is a bit trickier than others because it requires you to think abstractly rather than concretely. Quiz-maker Robert Balin presents a series of circuits and components along with the first letters of the related topics. Your mission, should you decide to accept, is to match the item to the letter. The example provided is matching the letter "J" to a drawing of that type of half-wave antenna. I have to admit that my attempt at matching all of the items and letters was taking a lot of time, so I quit before finishing all of them; my hard head is better at concrete thinking.

Electronic Alphabet Quiz

By Robert P. Balin

The letters of the alphabet are often used as abbreviations for electronic terms. Thus, J means to the electronics enthusiast a type of half-wave antenna. Can you match the letters below with the drawings (1-10) of the devices and circuits to which they most logically refer?

Electronic Alphabet Quiz #1 - RF Cafe    Electronic Alphabet Quiz #2 - RF Cafe    Electronic Alphabet Quiz #3 - RF Cafe

Electronic Alphabet Quiz #4 - RF Cafe   Electronic Alphabet Quiz #5 - RF Cafe   Electronic Alphabet Quiz #6 - RF Cafe

Electronic Alphabet Quiz #7 - RF Cafe   Electronic Alphabet Quiz #8 - RF Cafe   Electronic Alphabet Quiz #9 - RF Cafe

Electronic Alphabet Quiz #10 - RF Cafe

A ____

B ____

C ____

E ____

L ____

Q ____

S ____

X ____

Y ____

Z ____

 

See answers below.


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.

RF Cafe Quizzes

Vintage Electronics Magazine Quizzes

Vintage Electronics Magazine Quizzes

 

 

 

 

 

Alphabet Quiz Answers

A - 8  Class A amplifiers use a biasing level which permits plate current to flow continuously when an a.c. signal is applied to the grid.

B - 3  The B battery is used to supply the plate voltage for battery-operated tubes.

C - 9  Operating temperatures for electronic devices are often given in degrees Celsius (°C), formerly known as the centigrade scale.

E - 7  The E layer of the ionosphere 50 - 90 miles up provides daytime over-the-horizon short-wave radio reception.

L - 10  An L section choke input filter is used in full-wave, high-current power supplies such as those employing mercury vapor rectifiers.

Q - 1  The Q of a coil is a figure of merit representing the ratio of its reactance to resistance at a specific frequency.

S - 5  An S-meter is a relative signal strength indicator on radio receivers, calibrated in "S" units from 0 - 9,          and in db above S-9.

X - 2  X-ray radiation is produced in a Roentgen tube when a high-velocity electron beam strikes a tungsten target.

Y - 6  The Y connection of transformer secondary windings provides three-phase power in which the line-to-line voltage equals 1.732 times the line-to-ground voltage.

Z - 4  The Z-axis input of an oscilloscope permits intensity modulation of the electron beam by applying the           signal to the grid-cathode circuit.

 

 

Posted June 16, 2021
(updated from original post on 6/25/2014)