What term describes the number of times per second that an alternating current makes a complete cycle?
Why Alternating current reverses direction repeatedly, and one full back-and-forth trip is a cycle. The count of those cycles completed in one second is the frequency, measured in hertz (Hz); 1 Hz is one cycle per second, and 1 MHz is a million cycles per second. Frequency is what you dial in on your radio, for example 146.52 MHz means 146,520,000 cycles each second.
Watch out Wavelength is the physical distance one cycle travels in space, typically in meters, and it is inversely related to frequency (wavelength in meters = 300 divided by frequency in MHz), so it is a length, not a rate.
Frequency = cycles per second = hertz. Wavelength is measured in meters, frequency in Hz.