Hertz to megahertz: six decades in a single step
What this conversion does
It divides a frequency by a million. The two units sit six orders of magnitude apart, so almost every ordinary signal lands at one extreme or the other: a timing crystal is a few million hertz, while a mains supply is fifty. A frequency in between is unusual enough that it is worth checking the input twice before trusting the answer.
Where the watch crystal sits
Most quartz watches and real-time clocks run at 32768 Hz, which is two to the power of fifteen. That number was chosen because it can be halved fifteen times by simple digital counters to reach exactly one pulse per second, and because a tuning fork cut to that frequency is small and stable. Written in megahertz the same crystal is 0.032768 MHz, a figure nobody quotes, which is why timekeeping stays in hertz and kilohertz while radio moves to megahertz.
Hertz to megahertz conversion table
Frequencies from the bottom of the useful spectrum upwards, showing how quickly the megahertz column loses significance as the hertz value falls.
| Hertz (Hz) | Megahertz (MHz) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.000001 |
| 50 | 0.00005 |
| 60 | 0.00006 |
| 440 | 0.00044 |
| 1000 | 0.001 |
| 20000 | 0.02 |
| 100000 | 0.1 |
Why a million, and not a thousand
The SI prefixes step by a thousand each time, so a thousand hertz is a kilohertz and a thousand kilohertz is a megahertz. That means one megahertz is a million hertz, not a hundred thousand. Reading a band plan that mixes the two is where the mistake usually happens: a station listed at 3.5 MHz is at 3500 kHz, which is 3,500,000 Hz.
Count the groups of three
To go from hertz to megahertz by eye, split the digits into groups of three from the right and move the decimal point six places, or two groups. A number with fewer than seven digits has no whole megahertz in it at all, and its answer will start with a zero.
Frequently asked questions
How many hertz are in one megahertz?
Exactly one million. The prefix steps up by a factor of a thousand twice, once from hertz to kilohertz and again from kilohertz to megahertz. So 1 MHz is 1000 kHz and 1,000,000 Hz, with no rounding at any step.
How do I convert 32768 Hz to megahertz?
Divide by a million, which gives 0.032768 MHz. That is the standard watch crystal, and the reason it is normally written in hertz is that the megahertz form carries a leading zero and six decimal places for no benefit.
Does the converter round small results to zero?
No. Very small values are written in exponent form instead, so a low frequency keeps all of its significant digits rather than collapsing to a string of zeroes. Rounding a real signal away to nothing would be worse than showing an unfashionable number.
What is the difference between Hz and MHz on a radio dial?
Only the scale. FM broadcasters are quoted in megahertz because their frequencies run from about 88 to 108 million hertz, and shortwave broadcasters in kilohertz because theirs run from about 530 to 1700 thousand. The dial is listing the same quantity either way.
Is a megahertz a million cycles per second?
Yes. One hertz is one cycle per second, so one megahertz is a million cycles per second. A processor running at 1 MHz completes a million clock cycles every second, which is why the unit appears in both radio and computing.