How are radio waves mathematically expressed?

Question

Hello! I’m trying to educate myself on radio transmissions. I started with [Basics for dummies](https://www.dummies.com/article/technology/digital-audio-radio/ham-radio/basics-of-radio-waves-160691/)

That article describes radio waves as frequency and wavelength. The [1977 Wow! Signal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal) is expressed in frequency and bandwidth.

Can someone help elucidate the difference for me?

And how is this mathematically expressed? Would a radio wave be expressed as a “1420 Mhz wavelength signalin the 10 kHz band?” Something else?

Thanks!

In: Mathematics

Answer 1

The frequency of the transmission is the center frequency, and the bandwidth tells you how much up and down the frequency wavers. So if you had a 1420 Mhz (1,420,000,000 Hz) signal with a 10 Khz (10,000 Hz) bandwidth, the frequency would wobble between 1,419,995,000 Hz and 1,420,005,000 Hz.