Also known as: VHF, UHF, SHF

Frequency bands are the conventional decade-wide divisions of the radio spectrum: VLF, LF, MF, HF (3–30 MHz), VHF (30–300 MHz), UHF (300 MHz–3 GHz), and SHF (3–30 GHz).¹ Each behaves differently and is allocated to different uses.

The radio spectrum divided into bands; VHF and UHF carry most scanner and trunked-radio traffic.

How it works

HF can refract off the ionosphere for worldwide “skip”, while VHF and UHF are essentially line-of-sight. Regulators publish band plans assigning slices to broadcast, aviation, marine, public safety, and amateur use.

Relevance to SDR

Most trunked-radio scanning happens in VHF, UHF, and the 700/800 MHz bands. Matching an SDR’s tuning range to the target band is the first hardware decision.

Sources

1. Radio spectrum — Wikipedia, for the conventional band divisions and their frequency ranges. ↩

See also

• Electromagnetic spectrum
• Frequency
• Radio propagation
• Ionospheric propagation

Learn it step by step

• Frequency, bands & the spectrum