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Here we will answer the question, "what's the frequency?" for about anything you can think of. Except stuff that's classified of course!
In 1986, an assailant knocked Dan Rather to the ground in Manhattan and kicked him repeatedly while asking "what's the frequency, Kenneth?" If only Dan had studied this web page, he could have supplied an answer.
Who would do such a thing? And why? No one knew until over 10 years later. In 1997, a psychiatrist was interviewing William Tager, who was in jail at the time for killing an NBC stagehand. According to the psychiatrist, Tager blamed news media for beaming signals into his head and thought that if he could just find out the correct frequency, he could block those signals. Though we don't know whether Tager confessed or not, Dan Rather positively identified Tager as the mystery assailant. R.E.M. later sang a pop song about the incident!
What's the Frequency Kenneth? by R.E.M.
And now back to the subject at hand...
Some of the information below came from Philips (now NXP, or is in Ampleon?), from their downloadable "RF Manual", which we highly recommend that you check out. In 2015, Hossein helped us track down the latest version, which is the 18th edition, but we must warn you there are no guarantees that the links below will be permanent. If the link is broken, send us an email and we will chase it down.
The NXP (may its soul rest in peace) manual link on page “What's the frequency?” is outdated. Apparently the last version from NXP is 18th which can be found here and a version from AMPLEON here.
Here's an article on a television that has sent out an international distress signal.
For exact television channel frequencies, check out this table.
| System |
Frequency range |
| RFID systems |
125 to 134 kHz
13.56 MHz
UHF (400 to 930 MHz)
2.45 GHz
5.8 GHz |
| AM radio (United States) |
535 kHz to 1.7 MHz |
| Short wave radio |
5.9 to 26.1 MHz |
| Citizen's band (CB) radio (40 channels) |
26.96 to 27.41 MHz |
| Radio controlled airplanes |
27.255 MHz (shared with CB channel 23) |
| Broadcast television channels 2-6 |
54 to 88 MHz |
| FM radio |
88 to 108 MHz |
| Broadcast television, channels 7-13 |
174 to 220 MHz |
| Garage door openers, alarms |
~40 MHz |
| Cordless analog phones |
40-50 MHz |
| Baby monitors |
49 MHz |
| Radio controlled airplanes |
~72 MHz |
| Radio controlled cars |
~75 MHz |
| Remote keyless entry (RKE) systems, tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) |
315 or 433 MHz |
| RFID UHF |
433 MHz |
| UHF television (channels 14-83) |
470 to 890 MHz |
| Wildlife tracking collars, bank money dye packs (thanks Chris!) not a frequency you want to transmit... |
215 to 220 MHz |
| Personal Locator Beacons and other emergency beacons. Thanks to Hiker Jim! |
406 MHz |
| Cordless phones |
864 to 868 MHz
944 to 948 MHz |
| Industrial, medical & scientific (ISM) band Europe including RFID |
866-870MHz |
| Cell phones (GSM) |
824 to 960 MHz |
| Industrial, medical & scientific (ISM) band United States including RFID |
902 to 928 MHz |
| Air traffic control radar |
960 to 1215 MHz |
| Global positioning system (GPS) |
1227.6 MHz (L2 band, 20 MHz wide)
1575.42 MHz (L1 band, 20 MHz wide) |
Globalstar satellite phone downlink
Globalstar satellite phone uplink |
2483.5 to 2500 MHz
1610 to 1626.5 MHz |
| Cell phones (GSM) |
1710 to 1990 MHz |
| Digital cordless phones |
1880 to 1900 MHz |
| Personal handy phone system (PHS) |
1895 to 1918 MHz |
| Deep space radio communications: |
2290 to 2300 MHz |
| Industrial, medical & scientific (ISM) band |
2400 to 2483.5 MHz |
| Shared wireless data protocols (Bluetooth, 802.11b): |
2402 to 2495 MHz |
| Microwave ovens |
2450 MHz |
Satellite radio downlink
XM Satellite
Sirius Satellite |
2330 to 2345 MHz
2332.50 to 2,345.00 MHz
2320.00 to 2,332.50 MHz |
| Clear (Sprint) 4G |
2.5 to 2.6 GHz |
| Radio altimeters |
4.2 to 4.4 GHz |
| 802.11a wireless local area network (WLAN) |
5.15 to 5.25 GHz (lower band)
5.25 to 5.35 GHz (middle band)
5.725 to 5.825 (upper band) |
| Industrial, medical & scientific (ISM) band |
5.725 to 5.85 GHz |
| Satellite radio uplink |
7.050 to 7.075 GHz |
| Police radar |
10.525 GHz (X-band)
24.150 (K-band)
33.4 to 36 GHz (Ka-band) |
| Direct broadcast satellite TV downlink (Europe) |
11.7 to 12.5 GHz |
Direct broadcast satellite TV downlink (US)
for example, Echostar's Dish Network |
12.2 to 12.7 GHz |
| Satellite Transmission uplink (news trucks, etc) in United States (thanks Chris!) |
14-14.5 GHz |
| Automotive radar, distance sensors |
24 GHz |
| Unlicensed wireless GigaBit, ("WiGig", a portmanteau). Gibabit Wireless Alliance is covered by IEEE802.11ac standard. |
57 to 64 GHz |
| Automotive radar, adaptive cruise control |
76 to 77 GHz |
| E-band (new FCC-approved ultra-high speed data communications band) |
71 to 76 GHz, 81 to 86 GHz and 92 to 95 GHz |
| The so-called "pain ray" |
94 GHz |
If you have any information on frequencies that we are missing, please send it to us!
Atmospheric attenuation
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