In radio engineering, a frequency offset is an intentional slight shift

Frequency shift

In the physical sciences and in telecommunication, the term frequency shift has the following meanings:* Any change in frequency* A Doppler shift* Any change in the frequency of a radio transmitter or oscillator...

 of broadcasted radio frequency

Radio frequency

Radio frequency is a rate of oscillation in the range of about 3 kHz to 300 GHz, which corresponds to the frequency of radio waves, and the alternating currents which carry radio signals...

 (RF), to reduce interference with other transmitters.

Interference

The most important problem encountered in broadcasting via terrestrial transmitters is the interference from other broadcasters. In principle, each broadcaster has a different radio frequency (planned by the public authority) in a common reception area to avoid interference from each other. However still there are two problems: spurious radiation of adjacent channels and fringe reception.

Fringe reception is unintended reception under certain weather conditions. The exceptionally long-range reception means that the receiver may be tuned to more than one transmitter (transmitting at same frequency) at the same time. These transmitters may transmit programs of different broadcasters as well as the programs of the same broadcaster. In analogue transmission, even the transmitters transmitting the very same program interfere each other because of phase differences of the incoming signal, but in digital

Digital

A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...

 transmission the transmitters transmitting the same program in the same channel may reinforce each other.

The shift in RF

In order to reduce the interference from the fringe area transmitters transmitting in the same channels, a method named frequency offset is often used. By this method, a slightly shifted RF is assigned for a transmitter which may be interfered by other transmitters.

In TV transmission, the shifted RF is calculated by the formula;

where,
is the offset RF,
is the standard channel RF,
is an integer such that
is the line frequency. ( 15625 Hz. for most systems, 15750 Hz. for system M

System M

System M, sometimes called 525 line, is the analog broadcast television system used in the United States since July 1, 1941, and also in most of the Americas and Caribbean, South Korea, and Taiwan. In addition, Japan uses System J, which is nearly identical to System M. The systems were given...

 and J and 20475 Hz. for system E)

Precision offset is the same as frequency offset, except that in this case, the offset frequency is produced by a cesium controlled oscillator.

Example

8p offset of channel 9 in system B can be found readily

The standard visual carrier frequency is 203.25 MHz The line frequency is 15 625 Hz.


8n offset of the same channel is likewise