Band I is a range of radio frequencies within the very high frequency (VHF) part of the

electromagnetic spectrum The electromagnetic spectrum is the full range of electromagnetic radiation, organized by frequency or wavelength. The spectrum is divided into separate bands, with different names for the electromagnetic waves within each band. From low to high ...

. The first time there was defined "for simplicity" in Annex 1 of "Final acts of the European Broadcasting Conference in the VHF and UHF bands - Stockholm, 1961". Band I ranges from 47 to 68

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

for the European Broadcasting Area, and from 54 to 88 MHz for the Americas and it is primarily used for

television broadcasting A television broadcaster or television network is a telecommunications network for the distribution of television content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations, pay television providers or, in the United ...

in compliance with

ITU Radio Regulations The ITU Radio Regulations (RR) is a basic document of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) that regulates on law of nations scale radiocommunication services and the utilisation of radio frequencies. It is the supplementation to th ...

(article 1.38). With the transition to digital TV, most Band I transmitters have already been switched off.

Television broadcasting usage

Channel spacings vary from country to country, with spacings of 6, 7 and 8

being common. In the UK, Band I was originally used by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

for

monochrome A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color (or values of one color). Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale (typically digital) or black-and-white (typically analog). In physics, mon ...

405-line

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

; likewise, the French former 455-line (1937–1939) then 441-line (1943–1956) transmitter on the

Eiffel Tower The Eiffel Tower ( ; ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower from 1887 to 1889. Locally nicknamed "''La dame de fe ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, and some stations of the French monochrome

819-line 819-line was an Analog television, analog monochrome television, TV system developed and used in France as television broadcast resumed after World War II. Transmissions started in 1949 and were active up to 1985, although limited to France, Bel ...

system used Band I. Both 405-line and 819-line systems were discontinued in the mid-1980s. Other European countries used Band I for 625-line analogue television, first in monochrome and later in colour. This was being gradually phased out with the introduction of

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using Digital signal, digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an ...

in the

DVB-T DVB-T, short for Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial, is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in Singapore in Fe ...

standard, which is not defined for VHF Band I, though some older receivers and some modulators do support it. In the United States, use of this band is for analog

NTSC NTSC (from National Television System Committee) is the first American standard for analog television, published and adopted in 1941. In 1961, it was assigned the designation System M. It is also known as EIA standard 170. In 1953, a second ...

(ended June 12, 2009 for high power stations) and digital ATSC (current). Digital television has problems with impulse noise interference, particularly in this band.

Europe

In European countries that used System B for television broadcasting, the band was subdivided into three main channels, E2, E3 and E4, each being 7 MHz wide. E2A is a channel shifted slightly away from E2 and was used by a limited number of transmitters closer to Eastern Europe. Its use was to limit interference to and from nearby transmitters on channel R1. Italy used slightly different allocations, such as channel IA and the out of band "channel IC" (video: 82.25 MHz - audio: 87.75 MHz). Channel IC was used by the first transmitter brought in service by the RAI in

Torino Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

in the 1950s which was previously used in WW2 by the US to broadcast

TV on channel A6 for military purposes, later donated to Italy, it had its video carrier shifted 1 MHz lower to accommodate the System B standard. This channel was also widely used by private local stations until the switch over to

. Some countries such as Ireland (system A, I), France (system E, F, L) and the United Kingdom (system A) did not use system B and therefore used different frequencies for their channels. Some others didn't use Band I at all for terrestrial broadcast television. The fast growing of digital television as well as the susceptibility of this band to interference during E skip events in all European countries was accompanied by the progressive closedown of band I analog transmitters from 2006 to 2020.

Russia and other former members of
OIRT The International Radio and Television Organisation (official name in French: Organisation Internationale de Radiodiffusion et de Télévision or OIRT (before 1960 International Broadcasting Organization (IBO), official name in French: ''Organ ...

In the countries that use System D television broadcast system, the channel allocation in the VHF-I band is as follows: Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and a few other countries still broadcast analog TV on Band I in 2023.

North America

The band is subdivided into five channels for television broadcasting, each occupying 6 MHz ( System M). Channel 1 is not being used for broadcasting.

FM radio usage

The upper end of this band, 87.5 to 88 MHz, is the lower end of the

FM radio FM broadcasting is a method of radio broadcasting that uses frequency modulation (FM) of the radio broadcast carrier wave. Invented in 1933 by American engineer Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to transmit high fidelity, high-f ...

band. In the United States, the FCC will occasionally issue a license for 87.9 MHz (though it only does so on rare occurrences and special circumstances; KSFH was the most recent standalone station to use 87.9); 87.7 MHz, which is approximately the same frequency as the audio feed of channel A6, is used by some television licenses to broadcast primarily to radio, such as Pulse 87's stations. In Japan and some former Soviet republics frequencies lower than 87 MHz are still used for the

FM broadcast band The FM broadcast band is a range of radio frequencies used for FM broadcasting by radio stations. The range of frequencies used differs between different parts of the world. In Europe and Africa (defined as International Telecommunication Union ( ...

. In Brazil, with the phasing out of the PAL-M analog broadcasts,

AM radio AM broadcasting is radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation (AM) transmissions. It was the first method developed for making audio radio transmissions, and is still used worldwide, primarily for medium wave (also known as "AM band") transmi ...

stations have been migrated to a new

band between the frequencies from former analog TV channels A5 and A6 (76.1 MHz to 87.5 MHz) called Extended FM or e-FM.

Amateur radio and TV DX

The 6-meter band (50 MHz) and the 4-meter band (70 MHz) are used by

radio amateurs An amateur radio operator is someone who uses equipment at an amateur radio station to engage in two-way personal communications with other amateur operators on radio frequencies assigned to the amateur radio service. Amateur radio operators ...

Short wave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (app ...

-like propagation is only possible under special circumstances, including frequent E skip events in the summer season. This leads to strong signals in the 800–2,000 km range allowing the reception of distant TV stations (TV DX). Worldwide connections are possible but remain a challenge on these frequencies.

References

{{Audio broadcasting Broadcast engineering Radio spectrum