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RF Cafe Quiz #87

RF Engineering Quizzes - RF Cafe WebsiteAll RF Cafe Quizzes make great fodder for employment interviews for technicians or engineers - particularly those who are fresh out of school or are relatively new to the work world. Come to think of it, they would make equally excellent study material for the same persons who are going to be interviewed for a job. Good luck!

A complete list of RF Cafe Quizzes.

Quiz #87: Capacitance - RF Cafe WebsiteCapacitance - the ability of a system to store an electrical charge - is a cornerstone of electronics, enabling everything from simple filtering and coupling to complex energy storage and timing circuits. While the ideal model of two parallel plates is easy to visualize, real-world capacitors involve a diverse array of materials, geometries, and limitations. Whether dealing with electrolytic, ceramic, film, or tantalum types, each component introduces specific characteristics like Equivalent Series Resistance (ESR), dielectric absorption, and voltage coefficients that can define the success or failure of a design. As frequencies rise, parasitic inductance and resistive losses often become as critical as the capacitance value itself. This quiz explores these physical properties, the fundamental relationships between charge, voltage, and capacitance, and the practical challenges of selecting the right component for tasks such as power supply decoupling, signal coupling, and high-frequency tuning. Whether you are aiming for high precision or efficient power delivery, mastering these capacitive fundamentals is essential.

 

1. What is the fundamental unit of capacitance?





 

2. How does the capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor change if the distance between the plates is doubled?





 

3. What happens to the capacitive reactance (XC) of a capacitor as the frequency increases?





 

4. Which type of capacitor is most commonly used for polarized DC filtering where high capacitance is required?





 

5. What is the phase relationship between voltage and current in an ideal capacitor?





 

6. What does "ESR" stand for in the context of capacitor reliability?





 

7. What happens to a capacitor when it is connected to a DC source after reaching steady-state?





 

8. Which dielectric material is generally considered to have the lowest loss tangent (best for RF)?





 

9. What is "dielectric absorption" in a capacitor?





 

10. What effect does placing two capacitors in parallel have on total capacitance?






Quizzes from vintage electronics magazines (and many custom RF Cafe-generated quizzes) such as Popular Electronics, Electronics-World, QST, Radio-Electronics, 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
Espresso Engineering Workbook

About the RF Cafe™ Website ©1996-2026

Kirt Blattenberger - RF Cafe WebmasterRF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling 2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps while tying up your telephone line, and a lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail" when a new message arrived...

Webmaster: Kirt Blattenberger  |     BSEE - KB3UON - AMA92498  |  USAF Radar Technician

All trademarks, copyrights, patents, and other rights of ownership to images and text used on the RF Cafe website are hereby acknowledged.

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