What is the expected observation about the two-tone SSB test result when the test is performed to assess linearity?

Get ready for the FCC General Radiotelephone Operator License (GROL) exam. Study with flashcards and multiple choice questions, each with hints and detailed explanations. Prepare effectively for your licensing test!

When you run a two-tone SSB test, you’re checking how faithfully the transmitter handles multiple simultaneous modulating signals. In a linear transmitter, modulating with two audio tones will produce RF output that is simply the combination of those two tones with the correct sidebands—no extra unintended frequencies appear. If the transmitter has any nonlinearity, intermodulation distortions show up as new RF components at frequencies that are sums and differences of the two tones, indicating the output isn’t a clean, proportional replica of the input. So the test is assessing the transmitter’s linearity: a clean result means good linearity, while intermod products signal nonlinearity. This is not primarily a test of carrier stability, modulation depth accuracy, or sideband suppression.