Kilohertz (kHz)
1,000 hertz. AM radio stations are tuned in kilohertz and audio is sampled at 44.1 kHz.
1 kilohertz = 1,000 hertz (exactly).
About the kilohertz
Older radio operators called it the kilocycle. Before the CGPM adopted the hertz in 1960, thousands of cycles per second were written kc/s, and the popular press only switched to kilohertz in the late 1960s. The name changed, but the number on the dial did not.
A kilohertz is 1,000 hertz, a range that covers audible sound and medium-wave radio. Medium wave runs from 531 to 1602 kHz in Europe, Asia and Africa with 9 kHz channel spacing, and from 530 to 1700 kHz in the Americas with 10 kHz spacing. Audio engineers use it for sampling rates: 44.1 kHz comes from the Compact Disc, which Sony used from 1979, and the rate was originally chosen so digital audio could fit on video tape for both PAL and NTSC. Because sampling must exceed twice the highest frequency, 44.1 kHz comfortably covers hearing up to 20 kHz.
Sources: Wikipedia: Medium wave; Wikipedia: 44,100 Hz; Wikipedia: Kilohertz
Kilohertz conversion chart
1 kilohertz expressed in every other frequency unit:
| Unit | 1 kilohertz |
|---|---|
| Hertz | 1,000 |
| Megahertz | 0.001 |
| Gigahertz | 0.000001 |
| Revolutions Per Minute | 60,000 |
| Beats Per Minute | 60,000 |
| Terahertz | 1×10⁻⁹ |
| Millihertz | 1,000,000 |
| Radians Per Second | 6,283.185307 |
| Degrees Per Second | 360,000 |
More Metric (SI) units
- hertz (frequency)
- megahertz (frequency)
- gigahertz (frequency)
- terahertz (frequency)
- millihertz (frequency)
- revolution per minute (frequency)
- beat per minute (frequency)
- meter (length)
- kilometer (length)
- centimeter (length)
- millimeter (length)
- micrometer (length)
- nanometer (length)
- picometer (length)
- decimeter (length)
- hectometer (length)
Browse all frequency units.