ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

FM broadcast band

Okay kiddo, so you know how you can listen to the radio and hear your favorite songs and stuff? Well, those sounds you hear are broadcasted over the airwaves using something called FM radio.

FM stands for Frequency Modulation, and it's really just a fancy way of saying that the way the sound is sent through the air changes the radio waves.

Now, there's a special range of frequencies that FM radio uses that's called the FM broadcast band. It's basically a group of radio frequencies that have been set aside specifically for FM radio stations to use.

These frequencies are measured in units called Hertz (Hz for short), which is just a fancy word for how many times something happens per second. So in this case, it means how many radio waves are transmitted per second.

The FM broadcast band is actually a really small range of frequencies between 87.5 MHz and 108.0 MHz. This means that there are only a certain number of FM radio stations that can exist in any given area, and they have to make sure they don't clash with other stations or other radio signals.

So when you tune your radio dial to a certain number, let's say 101.5 FM, what you're really doing is telling your radio to look for radio waves that are vibrating at that frequency (101.5 million waves per second in this case). And if a radio station nearby is broadcasting on that frequency, voila! you'll hear it come through your speakers.

So that's basically what the FM broadcast band is - a specific range of frequencies that FM radio stations use to transmit their signals, so that people like you and me can enjoy listening to music, news, and other fun stuff on the radio.