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If you’ve been an SWLing Post reader for long, you’ll have “met” him virtually; if you’ve been in attendance the Winter SWL Fest recently, you’ll recognize him, may have heard him speak, and perhaps even have met him in person. I’m speaking, of course, of my good friend, Post contributor, and fellow radio listener, Mark Fahey.
What you might not know about Mark, an intrepid Aussie and mediahound of remarkable facility and clarity, is that he has spent many years (and significant personal resources) compiling a fascinating and invaluable multi-media project in the form of an iBook he’s titled Behind The Curtain, which allows outsiders a frank view directly into North Korean propaganda.
What’s astounding is that this view is from within North Korea: Mark, having traveled to North Korea numerous times (until he made his research public, that is, thus limiting his re-entry), successfully rips back North Korea’s curtain of self-image to reveal, in all its stultified glory, the inner workings––and failings––of the”Hermit Kingdom.”
He’s now very near to publishing Behind The Curtain, and he’s making available the iBook––as well as all of the media and research he’s curated––for free.
HOPE X
During the summer of 2014 Mark ventured to New York City to present his research at HOPE X (Hackers On Planet Earth). Yesterday, I rediscovered the video of Mark’s presentation at HOPE X on YouTube. If you’re interested in North Korea, propaganda, number stations, SDRs, and/or anthropology of any stripe, you’ll certainly enjoy this presentation, which is truly like no other:
Behind The Curtain doesn’t yet have a formal release date, but stay tuned to the Post for details about its availability, as well as any other presentations or projects on this (or any other subject!) by Mark.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Chris Kadlec, who shares the following announcement about his Seoul AM Radio Listening Guide:
After a long 14 months of work, I’m happy to present the completed Seoul AM Radio Listening Guide, a three-hour documentary broadcast exploring the Seoul AM band one frequency at a time, plus a look at the radio war on the Korean peninsula accompanied by a 115-page guide.
In addition to radio broadcasts from across East Asia, the broadcast includes Korean noise jammers and AM, FM, shortwave, and television propaganda broadcasts from both the north and the south, additionally outlined in a 25-page broadcast transcript and 115-page informational guide. It also includes:
* A comprehensive list of 260 East Asian AM stations, including station names, tower locations, distance and direction from Seoul, parallel FM frequencies, broadcast hours, and station website links.
* A full bandscan of 235 regular nightly skywave signals as heard after the sun sets over Seoul.
* Daytime groundwave bandscans taken from eleven different locations in the Seoul metro area, along the North Korean border, beside the sea, and in Korea’s mountainous interior with background information about each location.
* A guide showing stations organized by their network affiliations in addition to privately-owned stations and networks. Alternatively, stations are also shown organized by country, region, and city.
* A chart showing signal strength for each bandscan – day and night – in bar graph format.
* A full colour-coded regional station map covering both skywave and groundwave signals.
* A view of some of Korea’s signal jammers as seen on an SDR (software-defined radio).
* Plus, a complete transcript of the three-hour audio broadcast with additional information on the featured audio clips as well as the songs featured in those clips.
– Chris Kadlec
Brilliant, Chris! I can only imagine the amount of time and effort you’ve put into this guide. Thank you!
Radio South Atlantic was a short-lived clandestine radio station started by the UK Ministry of Defence with programmes aimed at Argentine troops on the Falkland islands. This programme was broadcast from a transmitter on Ascension Island which was temporarily taken away from BBC World Service.
The Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas), also known as the Falklands Conflict, Falklands Crisis and the Guerra del Atlántico Sur (Spanish for “South Atlantic War”), was a ten-week war between Argentina and the United Kingdom over two British overseas territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It began on Friday 2 April 1982 when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands (and, the following day, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands) in an attempt to establish the sovereignty it had long claimed over them.
On 5 April, the British government dispatched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Air Force before making an amphibious assault on the islands. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with the Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982, returning the islands to British control. In total, 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel and three Falkland Islanders died during the hostilities.
This is a studio copy of Radio South Atlantic. In May 1982, the British government decided to set up a Spanish language radio station targeting Argentine troops. This was probably in response to an Argentine radio station (nicknamed Argentine Annie by the UK press) which appeared on shortwave some weeks earlier using the Beatles theme “Yesterday” as a signature tune.
I was editing the Media Network programme at the time. We could hear Radio South Atlantic in Hilversum – but the signal was very weak. So I rang the British embassy in the Hague and asked if it would be possible to get a studio copy of the programme to use in a documentary feature we were making. A few days later, a courier riding a large motorbike arrived at RN’s reception and asked for me. I went down to the front-desk to sign for the tape. “But you can’t keep this tape. You can only listen to it” was the message from guy in the helmet. “I have to take it back to the Hague in about half an hour”. I said I’d look for an empty studio, gave the guy a large coffee and wandered casually round the corner. Then I made a mad dash to the fast copy-room used to make tape copies of RNW transcription programmes for other radio stations. It had a machine that could copy tapes at around 8 times faster than normal. Luckily, Jos, the guy in charge, saw my challenge, set up the machine immediately and 15 minutes later I was back in reception to return the tape to the messanger. And I had a copy.
It seems the British dropped leaflets over the Falklands to try and spread the word that this shortwave radio station existed. And we later analysed the programme. It was classic Sefton Delmer (Black Propaganda), although rather poorly presented. Bit like calling up Vera Lynne if the British had a dispute with France.
This is an amazing recording, Jonathan. I’ll admit that I had never heard of Radio South Atlantic before and never knew a UK-supported clandestine station was on the air during The Falklands War/Guerra de las Malvinas.
Thanks for the excellent history lesson and your own (clandestine) recording!
My post was written some time earlier and scheduled to publish Saturday while I was traveling. Unfortunately, the Cold War Radio Vignettes articles I had linked to were removed prior to Saturday.
I contacted Richard Cummings who has kindly assembled a small PDF booklet with the text from all of the posts I had referenced and is allowing me to share it here on the SWLing Post.
Richard asks that if any Post readers have information about these clandestine broadcasts and is willing to share it with him, he would me most thankful. His contact information is on the front page of the PDF.
UPDATE: The links to Cold War Radio Radio Vignettes below became inactive just prior to publication. Richard Cummings has kindly assembled the texts I referenced and made a PDF booklet available for SWLing Post readers. Click here to download.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Kim Elliott who (some time ago) shared a link to a series of posts by Richard Cummings from his website, Cold War Radio Vignettes.
Cumming’s blog is updated frequently and features many fascinating historical “vignettes” regarding Cold War radio broadcasting.
Kim specifically mentioned a series of posts with a focus on Cold War American broadcasting from Greece, suggesting SWLing Post readers might enjoy this bit of Cold War history. I completely agree!
Below, I’ve linked to a total of six posts Cummings published on the topic. Enjoy:
Cold War American Clandestine Radio Broadcasting over the Iron Curtain from Greece
Cold War American Clandestine Radio Broadcasting over the Iron Curtain from Greece, to Ukraine
I have a very unique DX location, mere feet from the banks of the Yukon River in Alaska’s Central Interior Region. I have logged about 2 dozen of North Korea’s shortwave frequencies: 2850 kHz, 3250 kHz, 3320 kHz, 6070 kHz, 6100 kHz, 6170 kHz, 6400 kHz, 7220 kHz, 7580 kHz, 9425 kHz, 9435 kHz, 9445 kHz, 9650 kHz, 9665 kHz, 9730 kHz, 9875 kHz, 11735 kHz, 11910 kHz, 11935 kHz, 121015 kHz, 13650 kHz, 13760 kHz, 15105 kHz, 15180 kHz and 15245 kHz.
As it turns out, one user from here helped me plot it, the shortest path from North Korea to the Midwestern USA is a line from Pyongyang right through the small village I live in! So that answers why some of their are so glaringly strong for me. But, I can in general, hear them all day everyday at some level on a frequency if I look hard enough and try hard enough to pick them up.
What I find odd is their “dirty/white noise carrier.” Let me explain: it’s noisy and I’m pretty sure it’s self induced, on purpose. Listen to this clip from April 6, 2016 I posted on Soundcloud: https://goo.gl/JFJSss
Listen to that noise that starts about 6 seconds into this clip, disappears at about 26 seconds and then comes back at 39 seconds. It disappears at 44 seconds and comes back at about 48/49 seconds. It disappears at 52 seconds and comes back at 1 minute 1 seconds, then the interval tune starts, gets interrupted and restarts again from the beginning.
To me, when the interval signal dies out and the noise goes with it, it’s almost like this white/dirty noise carrier is caused by whatever they are using as a studio to transmitter link.
Now onto some other North Korea shortwave airchecks:
Here is an example of how wide their signals can be and what I have done to overcome interference. Here they are on 11865 kHz at 0946UTC on June 30th. I actually had to tune 2 kHz down to 11863 kHz to escape splatter from KNLS only 500 miles to my south. Audio here: https://goo.gl/iqKqoh
Now here’s a video from 0824UTC on May 5, 2016 showing the same programming on 9875 kHz, 11735 kHz and 13760. And if you look closely in the upper right hand corner of the video, you’ll see the signal level meter on my Tecsun PL880 showing how strong the signals on all 3 frequencies is. Video here: https://goo.gl/2MbE6Y
From March 26, 2016 at 1729UTC, this is KCBS Pyongyang signal on 3320 kHz that is reportedly only 5 kw. Video/audio here: https://goo.gl/2MbE6Y
Here is the English service on 15180 kHz from March 4, 2016 at 0350UTC. Pay close attention to the signal level meter and listen to the audio. This is strong! Audio and video here: https://goo.gl/s5xHYm
Here’s the English service of Voice of Korea on 9730, pretty decent signal with some female announcer talking at times. Audio here: https://goo.gl/W0mfs7
And on 11680 kHz, here’s KCBS Pyongyang, their state broadcaster and a voice we DX’ers are probably very familiar with. Someone that a friend lovingly calls, “Miss Frantic News Anchor”. Audio here: https://goo.gl/3cxu76 (Voice of Korea is their “international service” and KCBS is their “state service.”)
The Voice Of of Korea broadcasts in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, English, Spanish, French & German. Here is their Russian broadcast on 11735 kHz from 0828UTC on March 13, 2016. Audio here: https://goo.gl/6L7bnu
This is the Voice Of Korea on 13760 kHz signing on their Spanish service back on March 11, 2016 at 0430UTC. Audio here: https://goo.gl/TacYT0
A few tips when looking for The Voice Of Korea on your shortwave radios:
The service always begins within seconds of exactly 30 minutes after the hour, with the interval tone interspersed with an announcer/announcers saying “The Voice Of Korea” in whatever language service is about to sign on. At about 24 after, a sign off message lasting roughly 3 minutes is read in the language of whatever service was on. If the frequency you’re listening will switch to another service at 30 after the hour, the carrier goes dead/unmodulated for almost exactly 3 minutes before the next language comes on. And the process is repeated over again.
The English service sign off message is read by a male in very stilted, very proper english. It sounds as if the French, German and Spanish service is voiced by people who could very well be native speakers of those languages.
There is no carrier being turned off or fill music being used between different language services on Shortwave. And when they go dead air, the carrier will be extremely noisy and dirty, see my first audio clip in this post.
The KCBS Pyongyang broadcasts, which are their domestic/state broadcast go from top of hour to top of hour and I don’t believe there is any dead air in between.
One other thing, Pyongyang time (an “official” time zone) is UTC/GMT +8 hours 30 minutes and that’s the time zone KCBS Pyongyang followed, but it appears Voice of Korea follows the UTC+8 time zone deal. Voice of Korea doesn’t signify top of hour with any tones, but KCBS Pyongyang does, as I’ve heard them do it 3 times. Listen to the time tones on KCBS Pyongyang 3320 kHz here: https://goo.gl/2MbE6Y (They are at the very beginning of the clip)
North Korea’s shortwave signals, in my observations, have followed the time and frequency schedules they are supposed to. Some sites say the language service and frequency don’t match up, but that is likely more a problem with the VOK website than the shortwave broadcaster itself. If a frequency is listed as “on,” it’s going to be on unless a power outage or transmitter malfunction occurs.
I live in Galena, Alaska which is a village of 500 people about 300 miles west of Fairbanks and 300 miles east of Nome. I work as the Program Director for community radio station KIYU which celebrated it’s 30th birthday on July 4th, 2016. Having provided 30 years of true community service, now serving eight villages up and down the Yukon River.
On shortwave, I don’t log everything I hear–I try to keep my log to those stations that are rare, unique or interesting for one reason or another. Everything I do log gets recorded and you can find it on my YouTube Channel and sometimes on my SoundCloud channel.
My DX’ing gear includes the Tecsun PL880, an Emtech ZM2 Tuner, a 225 foot long wire and a Wellbrook ALA1530LNP. I record my catches using the VRP7 (Voice Recorder Pro 7) app on my Iphone. I can then email that mp3 to myself or convert it to a Youtube link for sharing with others.
Paul Walker is located in Galena, Alaska and is a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Be sure to check out Paul’s YouTube channel and SoundCloud channel where everything he logs is recorded and posted. Click here to read his other contributions on the SWLing Post.
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