FM

The term ‘FM band’ is effectively shorthand for ‘frequency band in which FM is used for broadcasting’. It can upset purists, because it conflates a modulation scheme with a range of frequencies. The frequency of an FM broadcast station (more strictly its assigned nominal centre frequency) is usually an exact multiple of 100 kHz. In most of the Americas and the Caribbean, only odd multiples are used. In some parts of Europe, Greenland and Africa, only even multiples are used. In Italy, multiples of 50 kHz are used. There are other unusual and obsolete standards in some countries, including 0.001, 0.01, 0.03, 0.074, 0.5, and 0.3 MHz.

Random noise has a 'triangular' spectral distribution in an FM system, with the effect that noise occurs predominantly at the highest frequencies within the baseband. This can be offset, to a limited extent, by boosting the high frequencies before transmission and reducing them by a corresponding amount in the receiver. Reducing the high frequencies in the receiver also reduces the high-frequency noise. These processes of boosting and then reducing certain frequencies are known as pre-emphasis and de-emphasis, respectively.

The amount of pre-emphasis and de-emphasis used is defined by the time constant of a simple RC filter circuit. In most of the world a 50 µs time constant is used. In North America, 75 µs is used. This applies to both mono and stereo transmissions and to baseband audio (not the subcarriers).The amount of pre-emphasis that can be applied is limited by the fact that many forms of contemporary music contain more high-frequency energy than the musical styles which prevailed at the birth of FM broadcasting. They cannot be pre-emphasized as much because it would cause excessive deviation of the FM carrier. (Systems more modern than FM broadcasting tend to use either programme-dependent variable pre-emphasis—e.g. dbx in the BTSC TV sound system—or none at all.) The subcarrier system has been further extended to add other services. Initially these were private analog audio channels which could be used internally or rented out. Radio reading services for the blind are also still common, and there were experiments with quadraphonic sound. If Stereo is not on a station, everything from 23 kHz on up can be used for other services. The guard band around 19 kHz (±4 kHz) must still be maintained, so as not to trigger stereo decoders on receivers. If there is stereo, there will typically be a guard band between the upper limit of the DSBSC stereo signal (53 kHz) and the lower limit of any other subcarrier.

Digital services are now also available. A 57 kHz subcarrier (phase locked to the third harmonic of the stereo pilot tone) is used to carry a low-bandwidth digital Radio Data System signal, providing extra features such as Alternative Frequency (AF) and Network (NN). This narrowband signal runs at only 1187.5 bits per second, thus is only suitable for text. A few proprietary systems are used for private communications. A variant of RDS is the North American RBDS or "Smart radio" system while in Germany a system called ARI is used for broadcasting traffic announcements to motorists (without disturbing other listeners) RDS is designed to be capable of being used alongside ARI despite using identical subcarrier frequencies.