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Radio Wave Propagation and Antennas

Radio Frequencies Used in Communication

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Radio Frequencies Used in Communication

A classification for the high-frequency region of the radio-frequency spectrum was suggested⁵ by the Bureau of Standards. To this classification the first three items have been added, giving Table I.

TABLE I

CLASSIFICATION OF RADIO FREQUENCIES Name and Abbreviation Frequency


	Kilocycles	Megacycles
Very low frequency, VLF	10 to 30	0.01 to 0.03
Low frequency, LF	30 to 300	0.03 to 0.3
Medium frequency, MF	300 to 3000	0.3 to 3
High frequency, HF	3000 to 30,000	3 to 30
Very high frequency, VHF	30,000 to 300,000	30 to 300
Ultrahigh frequency, UHF	300,000 to 3,000,000	300 to 3000
Superhigh frequency, SHF	3,000,000 to 30,000,000	3000 to 30,000
Name and Abbreviations	Wavelength
	Centimeters	Meters
Very low frequency, VLF	3,000,000 to 1,000,000	30,000 to 10,000
Low frequency, LF	1,000,000 to 100,000	10,000 to 1000
Medium frequency, MF	100,000 to 10,000	1000 to 100
High frequency, HF	10,000 to 1000	100 to 10
Very high frequency, VHF	1000 to 100	l0 to l
Ultrahigh frequency, UHF	100 to 10	1 to 0.1
Superhigh frequency, SHF	10 to 1	.1 to 0.01

The Committee on Wave Propagation of the Institute of Radio Engineers has proposed the following frequency designations, in which cps is cycles per second, kc is kilocycles per second, mc is megacycles per second, and kmc is kilomegacycles per second.

TABLE II FREQUENCY DESIGNATIONS


	Frequency	Band Number
	1 cps - 10 cps	0
	10 cps - 100 cps	1
	100 cps - 1000 cps	2
	1 kc - 10 kc	3
	10 kc - 100 kc	4
	100 kc - 1000 kc	5
	1 mc - 10 mc	6
	10 mc - 100 mc	7
	100 mc - 1000 mc	8
	1 kmc - 10 kmc	9
	10 kmc - 100 kmc	10

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Radio Wave Propagation and Antennas

Radio Frequencies Used in Communication

Last Update: 2011-05-18