LAST UPDATED: July 17, 2019 by Ryan M

FM radio stations end in odd numbers to prevent interference. The reason they are odd numbers rather than even numbers is that 1 (odd number) is the first number we start counting from, not 0 (even number).

FM radio stations in the U.S. transmit in bands between 88.0 megahertz (MHz) and 108.0 MHz. Inside this band, each station occupies a 0.1 MHz (100 kilohertz (kHz)) section. Each of these sections starts and ends on odd number boundaries.

This means there can be a radio station at 88.1 MHz, 88.3 MHz, 88.5 MHz, and so on. Skipping over the even-numbered radio stations (88.2, 88.4, 88.6, etc. ) was done by the FCC to prevent radio stations from interfering with one another. Radio stations that are only 0.1 MHz (100 kHz) apart tend to bleed into each other more often.

Please help me out by clicking the LIKE button if you enjoyed reading this.

INTERESTING FACTS

Many countries have radio stations that end in even numbers. Radio waves take about 8 minutes to travel from the Earth to the Sun. The word ‘broadcasting’, referring to radio transmissions, was originally an agricultural term used to describe the wide scattering of seeds.

INTERESTING VIDEO