Ongoing History Daily: A lesson in radio frequencies (part 2)
When it comes to listening to the radio, FM is the most popular set of frequencies. That’s what we talked about last time.
In second spot is AM, which stands for “amplitude modulation.” AM is the oldest of all radio spectrums, dating back to the very early 1900s. Depending on where you are in the world, the standard AM band runs from 535 kHz to 1705 kHz. In North America, stations are spaced 10 kHz apart, so allocations are 540, 550, 560, 570, and so on. But it’s different in Europe, Asia, and Africa, where spacing is kHz. Allocations go 531, 540, 549, 558, and so forth.
But there’s even more to AM radio than what we can get on our car radios. More next time.
