Free oscillations of the magnetization are excited in magnetic uniaxial Permalloy films by a small dc steppulse field with less than 0.35 nsec risetime. This field is applied perpendicularly to the magnetization andin the plane of the film. The resulting damped oscillations of the magnetization are detected by a samplingoscilloscope and investigated between 500 Mc and 1200 Mc. The eigenfrequency is determined by a dc fieldparallel to the magnetization and by the orientation of the easy axis. The eigenfrequencies agree reasonablywith the ferromagnetic resonance frequencies of the same films. The damping constants&lgr;evaluated fromthe decay time of the free oscillations and from the linewidth of ferromagnetic resonance also agree fairlywell and are in the range from 100 Mc to 300 Mc. The experimental results are analyzed by means of theLandau-Lifshitz equation.