[BC] need a NON-technical explanation

[Tom Osenkowsky]

Hams do refer to HF bands in terms of meters, the wavelength of the frequency. Examples include 160, 80, 40, 20 meters, etc. It is much easier to express a frequency in kilohertz or megahertz rather than in meters. For example, 1240 KHz in the AM band equals 241.93548387096774 meters. Hertz was established as a unit of frequency in 1930 by the IEC (International Electrical Congress). The hertz is named after the German physicist Heinrich_Hertz, who made important scientific contributions to the study of electromagnetism. The name was established by the International_Electrotechnical_Commission (IEC) in 1930.[5] It was adopted by the General_Conference_on_Weights_and_Measures (CGPM) (Conférence générale des poids et mesures) in 1960, replacing the previous name for the unit, cycles_per_second (cps), along with its related multiples, primarily kilocycles per second (kc/s) and megacycles per second (Mc/s)
Cycles refers to cycles per second. (from Wikipedia).
 
Tom Osenkowsky, CPBE