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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, André, who writes:
I have been following the SWLing Post for many years and really enjoy it. Like many DXers, I have a YouTube channel where I share my catches.
But I have something a bit different, that your readers might find interesting. It is an interview with a producer and presenter at an Ethiopian clandestine SW station, Voice of Fano.
I think it is interesting to hear from someone who is directly involved in a clandestine station, during a time of conflict, about their station. How they make programmes, the listeners, why they started the station, why shortwave, are they being jammed and more.
The station transmits from Issoudun, twice a week only, 15215 kHz. It can be heard on Wednesdays and Saturdays, 17:00 to 18:15 UTC. The WRTH listing has not been updated yet, they used to broadcast for 30 minutes only, but have increased this to 75 minutes. They have been transmitting for just over five months.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares this special dive into the world of radio both in and targeting the Korean peninsula. His report includes off-air recordings along with his own original artwork.
Koreas’ Radio War
by Carlos Latuff, a special for the SWLing Post
The war that divided Korea in two began in 1950. A truce was signed by both sides in 1953, but a peace agreement never came to fruition. Therefore, North Korea and South Korea remain at war. And this war is not just happening on the ground, but also over the airwaves.
Every day, a battle for hearts and minds takes place on AM, FM and shortwave. Whether the DPRK broadcasts are directed to South Korea, or South Korean broadcasters (including clandestine ones) broadcast to the DPRK.
I bring here a small collection of radio listenings made between February 29th and March 17th, all of them happened in Porto Alegre, Brazil, using a XHDATA D-808 receiver, with long wire antenna (outdoor), except for Radio Free Asia, listened with a Toshiba TR 486 receiver, using a telescopic antenna (indoor). Translations from Korean to English were made using transcription and translation apps.
KBS World
KBS World Radio was created in 1953, the year the truce was signed between the two warring Koreas, under the name “The Voice of Free Korea”, and today, as a public radio station, it broadcasts to several countries in different languages. Its programming includes news, music, variety, and of course, opposition to the DPRK government.
As part of the effort to promote “regime change” in the DPRK, the Seoul government, through its intelligence service, maintains clandestine radio stations (“Echo of Hope” and “Voice of the People”) whose role is basically broadcast 24 hours a day anti-Communist propaganda to North Korea, along South Korean and American pop music.
Echo of Hope
Voice of the People
Radio Free Asia
Created by the CIA in 1951, at the height of the Cold War and the conflict in Korea, Radio Free Asia has undergone changes throughout its history, but continues to be operated by the United States government and aims, in its own words, to “provide independent, uncensored and accurate local news” for countries like China, Vietnam and, of course, North Korea. Content directed at the DPRK follows the same principle as South Korean clandestine broadcasters: basically anti-Communist orientation, in order to achieve a “regime change”. The articles broadcasted on the radio are the same as those published on the Radio Free Asia’s website.
KCBS Pyongyang
Korean Central Broadcasting Station (KCBS) Pyongyang is the DPRK’s domestic radio station, whose programming reaches North and South Korea, even being heard in Japan. News about the achievements of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, music and attacks on Seoul government, seen by Pyongyang as a puppet regime.
Voice of Korea
On October 14, 1945, the year Japan was defeated in World War II, KCBS Pyongyang and Voice of Korea were founded (domestic and international radio stations respectively). Voice of Korea broadcasts programming in several languages ??to the world via shortwave. The content is not much different from KCBS Pyongyang: achievements of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, attacks on Seoul government and the United States, and traditional/patriotic music.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul Walker, who notes that a new clandestine station called Yoruba Nation Radio has been broadcasting on shortwave since August 5, 2023.
Here’s one of their first announcements about the broadcasts:
On the 5th of August 2023, YorubaNation Shortwave Radio will start broadcasting live. Share this page with Yoruba citizens both Home and Diaspora. Listen to us every Saturday and Sunday from 20.00pm to 21.00pm Nigeria time on (Shortwave Radio) Frequency 17735 kHz. Also, listen to our online Radio 24/7.
If you’re driving through the greater Ravenswood area and tune your radio dial to 87.9 FM, you might just enter a sort of radio twilight zone. On tap? Old timey, crime-thriller radio dramas, complete with sleuthy melodramatic music, damsels in distress and classic radio sound effects – footsteps, doors slamming, the gun going off.
There are no call letters or DJs, just “audio noir” floating out over a two-square-mile sweet spot on Chicago’s North Side.
It’s all broadcast illegally out of a nondescript two-flat on a residential block. There’s a spindly antenna on the roof, visible mainly from the alley, and a 50-watt transmitter in the upstairs apartment. And there’s Bill, a retired computer and audio engineer who’s been operating this illegal station for some 15 years. He asked us not to use his last name for fear of “FCC prison.”
“People on the lakefront up in the high rises can hear it,” said Bill. “And they used to listen at Lane Tech somewhere on an upper floor. So it gets out a little ways, but not that far.”
Bill got into noir not because it’s gripping radio, but rather because it’s not. He has insomnia, and the plot lines from Dragnet and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar help him fall asleep. [Continue reading and listen to this piece at WBEZ.]
U.S.-backed news outlets and Ukrainian activists use Cold War techniques and high-tech tactics to get news about the war to Russians.
WASHINGTON — Using a mix of high-tech and Cold War tactics, Ukrainian activists and Western institutions have begun to pierce the propaganda bubble in Russia, circulating information about the Ukraine war among Russian citizens to sow doubt about the Kremlin’s accounts.
The efforts come at a particularly urgent moment: Moscow appears to be preparing for a new assault in eastern Ukraine that could prove devastatingly bloody to both sides, while mounting reports of atrocities make plain the brutality of the Kremlin’s tactics.
As Russia presents a sanitized version of the war, Ukrainian activists have been sending messages highlighting government corruption and incompetence in an effort to undermine faith in the Kremlin.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a U.S.-funded but independent news organization founded decades ago, is trying to push its broadcasts deeper into Russia. Its Russian-language articles are published on copies of its websites called “mirrors,” which Russian censors seek out in a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole. Audience numbers have surged during the war despite the censorship. Continue reading →
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares the following guest post:
Carlos Latuff at Catacumba Park in Rio de Janeiro, monitoring Ethiopian broadcasts.
ETHIOPIA: A WAR THROUGH RADIO
by Carlos Latuff, special for The SWLing Post
We just entered 2022 and the civil war in Ethiopia has already completed 1 year. On the one hand we have the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) guerrillas from northern Ethiopia and its allies, and on the other hand we have the armed forces of Ethiopian government and its allies. The dead are piling up, accusations of war crimes from both sides, local and international political interests at stake, and no perspective for a peaceful solution. Without going into the reasons for this new war in Ethiopian territory, I’d like to focus on the use of radio waves by both parties of this conflict.
I monitored shortwave broadcasts from Ethiopia and to Ethiopia between October 21, 2021 and January 4, 2022. The receivers were Tecsun PL-606 and XHDATA D-808, using both the telescopic antenna and a long wire. In all cases, listening was carried out in Brazilian cities.
Carlos at Catacumba Park monitoring and recording clandestine Ethiopian broadcasts.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who has been exploring the world of clandestine radio, documenting the on-going conflict in Ethiopia via shortwave radio. The following are two examples of his radio log art, this time for documenting jamming of Dimtse Wegahta Tigray and BBC News Tigrinya. Carlos shares the following art and recordings:
Ethiopian Jamming
Characteristic noise of “jamming” (intentional interference), probably coming from the Ethiopian government, preventing reception of the signal from the clandestine broadcaster Dimtse Wegahta Tigray (Voice of the Dawn Tigray).
Dimtse Wegahta Tigray broadcasts daily to warring Ethiopia on the frequency of 15340 kHz, using the powerful transmitters of the company TDF (Télédiffusion de France) in Issoudun, France.
Captured at Parque da Catacumba, Rio de Janeiro, 12/29/2021, 2:36 pm (local time):
BBC News Tigrinya broadcasting from UAE to Ethiopia/Eritrea
BBC News Tigrinya, 12065 kHz, broadcasting from Al Dhabbiya, United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Excerpt from the news.
– Ethiopian party member EZEMA talks about the intention to form a cabinet in the government of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed despite the war.
– US Embassy in Eritrea asks that country’s government to release political dissidents.
The BBC is among the news channels that are accused by the Ethiopian government of “spreading fake news”.
Signal received in Rio de Janeiro, 01/04/2022, at 3:14 pm (local time).
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who has been exploring the world of clandestine radio, documenting the on-going conflict in Ethiopia via shortwave radio. The image above is yet another example of his radio log art, this time for Raadiyoonii Dirree Shaggar.
Carlos notes:
Raadiyoonii Dirree Shaggar, 15330 kHz, clandestine broadcast in the Oromo language from Issoudun, France, to warring Ethiopia.
Final excerpt of an interview, where the guest says: “…The government that used the name of the Oromo people now uses it in many ways to deceive them…” “…Now the Oromo only think about carrying on the armed struggle to overthrow this system and preserve its existence…”
Signal captured at Parque da Catacumba, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 12/29/2021, 13:28 (local time).
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, André, who writes:
