Bands by Frequency
Band Name |
Short |
ITU Band |
Frequency |
Wavelength in Air |
Example Uses |
Tremendously Low Frequency | TLF | < 3 Hz | <100,000 km | Natural and artificial electromagnetic noise | |
Extremely Low Frequency | ELF | 3 – 30 Hz | 100,000 km – 10,000 km | Communication with submarines | |
Super Low Frequency | SLF | 30 – 300 Hz | 10,000 km – 1000 km | Communication with submarines | |
Ultra Low Frequency | ULF | 300 – 3000 Hz | 1000 km – 100 km | Submarine communication, communication within mines | |
Very Low Frequency | VLF | 4 | 3 – 30 kHz | 100 km – 10 km | Navigation, Time signals, submarine communication, wireless heart rate monitors, geophysics |
Low Frequency | LF | 5 | 30 – 300 kHz | 10 km – 1 km | AM (medium wave) broadcasts,AM longwave broadcasting (Europe and parts of Asia) RFID,amateur radio |
Medium Frequency | MF | 6 | 300 – 3000 kHz | 1 km – 100 m | AM (medium-wave) broadcasts, amateur radio, avalanche beacons |
High Frequency | HF | 7 | 3 – 30 MHz | 100 m – 10 m | Shortwave broadcasts, citizen’s band radio, amateur radio and over the horizon aviation communications, RFID, over the horizon radar, automatic link establishment (ALE) / near vertical incidence skywave (NVIS) radio communications, marine and mobile radio telephony |
Very High Frequency | VHF | 8 | 30 – 300 MHz | 10 m – 1 m | FM, television broadcasts and line-of-sight ground-to-aircraft and aircraft-to-aircraft communications, land mobile and maritime mobile communications, amateur radio, weather radio |
Ultra High Frequency | UHF | 9 | 300 – 3000 MHz | 1 m – 100 mm | Television broadcasts, microwave oven, microwave devices / communications, radio astronomy, mobile phones, wireless LAN, Bluetooth, ZigBee, GPS and two-way radios such as land mobile, FRS and GMRS radios, amateur radio |
Super High Frequency | SHF | 10 | 3 – 30 GHz | 100 mm – 10 mm | Radio astronomy, microwave devices / communications, wireless LAN, most modern radars, communication satellites, satellite television broadcasting, DBS, amateur radio |
Extremely High Frequency | EHF | 11 | 30 – 300 GHz | 10 mm – 1 mm | Radio astronomy, high frequency microwave radio relay, microwave remote sensing, amateur radio, directed-energy weapon, millimeter wave scanner |
Terahertz or Tremendously High Frequency | THZ or THF | 12 | 300 – 3000 GHz | 1 mm – 100 µm | Terahertz imaging (a potential replacement for X -rays in some medical applications), ultra fast molecular dynamics, condensed-matter physics, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy, terahertz computing / communications, sub-mm remote sensing, amateur radio |
Additional Resources
LTE, E-UTRAN, 3GPP Frequency Bands
700 MHz Band Plan
EU, NATO, US ECM Frequency Designations
Waveguide Frequency Bands
Radar Frequency Bands
ITU Radio Bands