American Radios

[Cassiewright]

Putting aside the voltage on American radios being used in the Uk does the frequency work ?

[Buenchico]

American radios usually cover the same wavebands as UK models. (I'm assuming that you're referring to 'traditional' radios. I'm not sure about DAB sets).

The only problem which can be experienced is when using sets which tune across the frequency range in 'steps'. Old-fashioned radios, have a knob which is turned to obtain the correct frequency. There are no 'gaps'. It wouldn't matter whether a medium wave station is on 900kHz, 905kHz or even 906.32kHz. You'd be able to 'twiddle the dial' to get the pointer into the position where you want it.

However, many modern radios have a digital frequency display and employ 'PLL tuning'. European models of these sets can be tuned in steps of 9kHz. So you can tune to 900khz, 909kHz, 918kHz, 927kHz, etc (but you can't, for example, tune to 920kHz).

This is fine in Europe because the European frequency agreement is that stations are spaced at 9kHz intervals. However, the USA standard is that stations are spaced at 10kHz intervals. (So, for example, you can tune an American PLL radio to 900kHz, 910kHz, 920kHz, etc but not to 918kHz).

A few radios (like my Roberts one) have a switch so that you can choose either 9kHz or 10kHz tuning steps but this feature is rare.

Chris