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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, DanH, who writes:
The YouTube channel Phuong DPRK Daily recently posted a video titled Listeners to Radio “Voice of Korea” in Pictures. This video offers a look at photos of VOK Voice of Korea (DPRK) shortwave listeners. I recognize the voice of one of the VOK newscasters as the narrator of this video. It is interesting to take note of the shortwave receivers shown in the photos as well. This video was also posted on the Voice of Korea website on September 25, 2020.
I listen to the English Language Service of VOK Voice of Korea from my suburban listening post in Northern California, USA. The VOK English language broadcasts beamed to South America usually provide the best reception for me. Here is my most recent reception video of VOK. It was recorded on November 10, 2020.
There are more reception videos of VOK available at my website Willow Slough DX. These videos include newscasts read by the male announcer heard on the photo album video.
Happy SWLing! The shortwave broadcast bands are beginning to improve after the long nadir of solar minimum!
The NK News has published an article about North Korea’s “Third Network”: the infamous cable network radio installed in many homes and that, some report, cannot be turned off.
This article tries to separate fact from fiction and turns to SWLing Post friend, Mark Fahey, among other North Korea experts:
The North Korean radio you can never turn off: fact or fiction?
Rumors have persisted for years, but how true they are remains up for debate
Eric Lafforgue discovered the radio in September 2011, on the wall of a farmhouse north of Hamhung.
Although small and austere, with just a speaker and a turquoise dial for volume control, the device stood out for two reasons: firstly, it looked cemented to the wall and secondly, his guide told him that “people cannot turn off the system.”
The French photographer would later post an image of the device on Flickr, where it remains one of the few pieces of photographic evidence of a uniquely North Korean twist on public address systems typical to the region.
Instead of issuing intermittent earthquake and tsunami warnings, however, this network is alleged to broadcast regime propaganda into citizen’s homes day and night without respite.
In some ways, the existence of this type of radio would be in keeping with what we know about the North Korean media landscape.
All television, radio and internet content is strictly censored by the state and suffused with propaganda glorifying the exploits of the state and its economic successes.
And a walk down the streets of any North Korean city will inevitably bring you into contact with a wide variety of posters exhorting greater personal sacrifice for the regime, praising its achievements or damning its enemies.
These are vivid displays often accompanied by motivational music and state announcements pumped daily into streets through public loudspeakers.
Even so, while these manifestations of North Korean propaganda are well-known to even casual observers of the country, visual evidence for the radio system described by Lafforgue remains scant.
In all his own trips to the DPRK, Mark Fahey has never seen any such device in person, and not for any lack of trying.
“I’ve been looking in every single room, in every single building I’ve been in,” Fahey, an expert on North Korean propaganda, tells NK News.
Others have been luckier. During filming for the documentary “A State of Mind” in 2004, footage was captured of a device similar to Lafforgue’s on the wall of a Pyongyang apartment.
“State radio is piped to every kitchen in the block,” a voiceover explains. “Listeners can turn the volume down, but not off.”[…]
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Tracy Wood, who notes:
New construction – a 250 kw FEBC medium wave outlet coming southwest of Seoul. BTW, FEBC currently leases at least one hour of VOA-Korean on FEBC 1188 khz Seoul.
Communist North Korea is about to get hit with a massive new radio signal carrying the message of Christ’s love like never before.
“It’s an AM station, 250,000 watts, which will clearly cover North Korea,” said Ed Cannon, president of Far East Broadcasting Company, also known as FEBC.
For over 75 years, FEBC has been using radio signals to send the message of Jesus Christ around the world.
Cannon says this new “super station” will be erected close to the border of North and South Korea.
“We’ve secured a location on the western coast of South Korea just a few miles south of the Demilitarized Zone,” Cannon told CBN News. “It’s a perfect location because the signal goes across the ocean for a few miles and then goes right into North Korea.”
FEBC’s president says the radio signal will launch in a few months and will carry gospel programs produced from neighboring South Korea.
“The strategy of our organization is to use indigenous people in their native language to produce programming,” Cannon said. “We have a large segment of South Korean people broadcasting and we also have a number of escapees, refugees from North Korea, who’ve come to our organization.”
Cannon claims the signal will be “unblockable” by North Korea’s regime and will “reach far past the northern boundary of North Korea covering the entire country with the message of Jesus Christ.”
According to its website, FEBC’s broadcasts can be heard in 107 languages and 49 countries from 149 stations and transmitters.
“Our goal in North Korea is the same as it is in all of our other countries: to share the gospel through radio so that people will be inspired to follow Jesus Christ as their Savior,” Cannon told CBN News in an earlier interview.
North Korea is the most dangerous country in the world for Christians. Cannon says anyone caught listening to FEBC programs faces severe consequences.
“The {North Korean} refugees themselves say ‘pray for courage, pray for perseverance’ because the Christians are reaching out in ways to gather together in the Name of Christ, to pray together, to listen to the radio together, and they are willing to endure severe persecution,” Cannon told CBN News.
Each year, Open Doors USA releases their World Watch List, a ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the most persecution.
North Korea has taken the top spot for 18 years in a row.
“If Christians are discovered, not only are they deported to labor camps as political criminals or even killed on the spot, their families will share their fate as well,” Open Doors asserted on their website. “Christians do not even have the slightest space in society, on the contrary, they are publicly warned against.”
“Two fight attendants from the YS-11 eventually emerged as announcers on the “Voice of the National Salvation,” a North Korean propaganda radio station targeting South Korean audiences.”
“The station claimed to be a voice of the alleged South Korean underground Juche resistance, and thus it badly needed broadcasters who were capable of speaking polished, Seoul-style Korean.”
Take to the skies: North Korea’s role in the mysterious hijacking of KAL YS-11 | NK News – North Korea News
Thank you, Mark. I was not aware of this story. It was too bad for those flight attendants that they had a skill the North Korea propaganda machine needed.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, DanH, who writes:
I put up a couple of videos on my “Willow Slough DX” YouTube channel nine hours ago that may rate at least an Arte Johnson (Laugh-in) “verrry interestink”. These are two videos of the North Korean shortwave station Voice of Korea operating with their new time zone and on their new schedule.
These are the two most recent videos of SW station receptions that I have posted during the last couple of days.
[The first video] is the VOK shortwave sign-on recorded at the newly scheduled time of 04:00, May 5, 2018 UTC on 15180 kHz. Distance: 5600 miles. Receiver: Sangean ATS-909X. Antenna: suburban 83m horizontal loop. Receiver location: Davis, California, USA. North Korea has changed its time zone to match UTC +9 which is used by South Korea. I was accustomed to tuning in Voice of Korea at 38 minutes past the scheduled hour for the English language news. Now I tune in at 8 minutes past the same hour. VOK broadcasts that were scheduled for 04:30 UTC now begin at 04:00 UTC. At the time I write this VOK shortwave programs listed on Short-Wave.info still show the old times:
[The second video] is the VOK shortwave newscast at the new time of 04:08, May 5, 2018 UTC on 15180 kHz. Some interference is heard half way through the clip:
Thanks for sharing this, Dan! It never crossed my mind that VOK would change their international broadcast time based on the fact they shifted their country’s time zone. From a North Korean perspective, though, I suppose this makes sense. Thanks for the tip!
Front page of the North Korean newspaper “Rodong” on April 28, 2018. (Source: Mark Fahey)
With North Korea in the global spotlight, I’ve been making every effort to listen to the Voice of Korea on shortwave. Unfortunately, from here on the east coast of North America, conditions have simply not been in my favor.
Fortunately, a couple of SWLing Post and SRAA contributors have had my back.
Yesterday, Richard Langley, uploaded a great VOK recording made with the U Twente WebSDR on April 28 at 13:30 UTC on 13760 kHz. Thank you Richard!
This morning, North Korean propaganda specialist Mark Fahey uploaded the following VOK recording to the archive and included notes and insight:
[The recording is] off 9,730 kHz so a mint shortwave file.
Recorded at the “Behind The Curtain” remote satellite and HF receiving site near Taipei, Taiwan (the site is remotely operated from Freemans Reach in Australia and was specifically established to monitor North Korean radio & television 24×7).
Remote Module #2 fully weather sealed and ready to deploy.
[…]I must say getting a good recording off shortwave is quite a challenge, just going to their satellite circuits far easier!
[T]he reason for the almost hi-fi quality is that I used the real-time audio enhancement and noise reduction techniques I presented at the Winter SWL Fest. The signal in reality was much noisier:
[I] also have long domestic recordings (which is what I have been focusing on rather than VOK).
[…]Of course domestic in Korean – but that has been my main interest/monitoring – what does the regime say to the domestic audience–?
They seem quite serious (I mean genuine) even acknowledging South Korea as a separate place and Moon being the president of this place. The domestic propaganda now not hiding the fact that South Korea is a separate sovereign nation, which is very un-North Korean propaganda!
The news is still kind of breaking in North Korea and the radio reflects that – the reports sound like Friday was yesterday. It takes a long time for North Korean media to report anything, so news from 3 days ago is presented as if it only happened 3 hours ago.
Also since it’s all topical I will include a YouTube link to a Voice Of Korea Documentary (propaganda to our ears of course–!) that has recently been posted to the Arabia Chapter of The Korean Friendship Association:
North Koreans continue to seek out foreign radio despite crackdown
Police in North Korea have recently focused their attention on cracking down on listeners of South Korean radio broadcasts in another sign of the government’s dual-approach to warming ties with the South, according to a source inside the country.
Speaking from Ryanggang Province on April 24, a source told Daily NK that “police have begun inspections of households possessing radios,” explaining that one method used to restrict radio usage includes applying stickers to the tuning buttons to prevent users from finding foreign broadcasts.
State-approved radios in North Korea are fixed to prevent tuning to non-official stations, but the authorities have used additional methods in recent times to handle the increasing amount of personal radios in the country. In addition to radio controls, authorities also place heavy restrictions on DVD players, phones, televisions, and other media devices.[…]
