Comment by MobiusHorizons

5 hours ago

Small note of clarification. HF in a radio frequency (RF) context actually refers to what we would now consider fairly low frequencies between 3 and 30mhz where wavelengths are in the tens of meters. The black magic is mostly in UHF AND microwave regions where wavelengths start to measure closer to the size of circuit elements.

Although I have also heard it said “RF physics is black magic” to cover all the bases

Yes, radio found out naming is hard before software did, in very old times there was High Frequency (HF), but then circuits got fast enough to go higher, oops, ok no problem, let's call the new frequencies Very High Frequency (VHF) whew that was close, but wait they got even faster! Ugh! Ok let's call the new frequencies Ultra High Frequency (UHF), but wait, we're still not in the Ghz range yet! Thankfully they did not keep going to Super Super Mega Ultra High Frequency.

  • 3–30 Hz Extremely low frequency

    30–300 Hz Super low frequency

    300–3000 Hz Ultra low frequency

    3–30 kHz Very low frequency

    30–300 kHz Low frequency

    300 kHz – 3 MHz Medium frequency

    3–30 MHz High frequency

    30–300 MHz Very high frequency

    300 MHz – 3 GHz Ultra high frequency

    3-30 GHz Super high frequency

    30–300 GHz Extremely high frequency

    300 GHz – 3 THz Tremendously high frequency

  • They should have started adopting olive size factors.

    After Ultra High, we could have had Jumbo, Colossal, Super Colossal. and Mammoth frequency ranges.

    Not to be confused with Colossal wavelengths, which is what we could have used if we need to fiddle around below Extremely Low frequencies..

  • Uhm.. Super High Frequency (SHF) and Extremely High Frequency (EHF) would like to have a word.

    Though yes in my experience, at those frequencies people stop using ITU designations, and switch to IEEE (S,C,X-band etc).