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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares his radio log art of a recent NHK World broadcast.
Carlos’ goal is to vividly illustrate the broadcaster’s message in his own unique artistic style and is not a reflection of his own beliefs or those of the SWLing Post. His objective is for his artwork to add historical context and put a visual with the news, reporting, and/or–as is often the case–propaganda:
Carlos notes:
Part of news bulletins from NHK World Japan and Voice of Korea (DPRK) about North Korea spy satellite test.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares his radio log art of a recent Voice of Korea broadcast.
Carols notes:
Listening in Porto Alegre, Brazil, news about an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launched by North Korea, via NHK World – Japan radio, broadcasting in Vietnamese, on shortwave frequency of 13705 kHz.
Of course, who really knows? North Korea isn’t public about any of their activities, so we rely on information from enthusiasts who have taken it upon themselves to investigate and confirm. Johnson assumed, “The most likely use [of DRM] would be as an audio feed to other stations and sites.” He used Radio New Zealand’s DRM service as an example, but I felt this to be unlikely with North Korea who doesn’t seem to use FM, MW, or shortwave relay sites in other parts of the world.
Fortunately, our friend Mark Fahey is an expert on North Korean media, broadcasts, and propaganda. Mark is the author and curator of the dynamic Behind The Curtain project.
I reached out to Mark via text message regarding North Korea’s use of DRM. Here’s what Mark shared with me earlier this week. This roughly follows the string of messages we exchanged.
Mark writes:
[October 3, 2022] I have been turning into the North Korean DRM today on the new reported frequency in the [Red Tech] magazine: 6140kHz, though it’s not VOK, it’s a relay of 819kHz Pyongyang.
This service is called KCBS – Korean Central Broadcasting Service – it’s the main domestic service that is available on MW (a few FM outlets) and domestic SW across North Korea.
I will grab an audio ID off DRM for you at the top of the next hour – 0100 UTC. The DRM broadcast is only running one audio stream. It’s ACC audio 14.56kbps. As for purpose, maybe to feed the national AM relays, but also could be for North Korean ships, etc.
The other DRM frequency of 3205kHz is not on the air at the moment. I will check for it over the next 24hrs etc.
I just recorded the top of the hour. It was going in and out of DRM sync – I will send it now. I will grab a better sample tonight when there is a darkness path. The sun is well up in Pyongyang & Sydney at the moment (Noon Sydney – 10AM North Korea). Here is the Top Of The Hour ID from 10 minutes ago…
KCBS 6140 kHz (October 3, 2022)
I will record the station opening as well tomorrow morning – this domestic service also has an interval signal (the same tune as VOK–the first bars of “The Song (Hymn) of Kim Il Sung”). The opening is at 2000 UTC.
[October 4, 2022] OK here you go: both audio files (one from 6140kHz and the other from 3205kHz) are just from minutes ago as KCBS Pyongyang signed on. The signals go in and out of DRM lock here and this morning 3205kHz was the better–displayed at SNR at 13dB but still the DRM signal was breaking up.
Both DRM transmitters are running the same program: the main MW national service as heard on 819kHz in Pyongyang.
So I’m sure this DRM has nothing to do with the Voice Of Korea and is for domestic purposes.
I actually do not think it has anything to do with feeding remote transmitters as the DPRK has fibre and microwave links already in place for that purpose. I myself think it’s more likely intended for North Korean fishing vessels, navy, merchant shipping etc. But of course, nobody truly knows!
KCBS 3205 kHz (October 4, 2022)
KCBS 6140 kHz (October 4, 2022)
Thank you so much for your recordings and insight, Mark!
As I mentioned, Mark has a massive DPRK audio repository on his website Behind The Curtain. These are recordings you simply can’t find anywhere else, including hours of pristine Pyongyang FM recorded on a CC-Crane Witness Mark personally smuggled into Pyongyang.
In fact, the above photo is the CC Witness in Mark’s hand overlooking central Pyongyang.
Mark told me that the CC Witness was ideal–he used it on a number of content gathering trips to North Korea as it resembled an MP3 player or dictation recorder rather than a radio. Since it wasn’t suspected as being a radio recording device, it passed through the North Korean border each time without incident.
It’s an understatement to say that Mark took a number of risks to gather North Korean media from “Behind the Curtain.” Thank you, again, Mark, for sharing this info about DPRK DRM broadcasts.
The vast Okeechobee, Fla., antenna farm of privately-owned WRMI, which transmits programming to the world via shortwave radio, was hit hard by Hurricane Ian.
WRMI has 14 transmitters and 23 antenna systems. “We had winds up around 100 miles per hour, and that did a real number on our antenna field,” said Jeff White, general manager of WRMI.
“So far we have three antennas that are probably destroyed beyond repair: one to Europe, one to Africa and one to Central America and the South Pacific.”
As pressing as rebuilding these three antennas is for WRMI, “The biggest job we have at the moment is putting back up dozens of telephone poles that carry the transmission lines from the transmitter building to the antennas,” said White. [Continue read at Radio World…]
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Alex, who notes that some of VOK’s language services are now available in podcast form. If you wish to hear some old school propaganda in high fidelity, this is a good way to do so: check it out on Castbox.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares yet another example of his radio log art, this time for The Voice of Korea.
Carlos notes:
Voice of Korea, 9650 kHz, broadcasting in Japanese from Kujang, North Korea.
Newsletter: Kim Jong Un watches test of new hypersonic ballistic missile.
Transmission with jamming, probably from South Korea.
Signal captured in Rio de Janeiro, 01/12/2022, 05:07, local time.
Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio
Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’sRadio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
SEOUL — In the show Crash Landing on You, a rich South Korean woman accidentally paraglides into North Korea, where she is rescued by an army officer and falls in love with him. The series, which was released on Netflix in 2019, was a hit across the Korean Peninsula — including in the North, where it circulated on smuggled thumb drives.
“It created quite a stir, with Kim Jong Un even forbidding people from watching it,” says Kang Nara, a North Korean defector in Seoul who served as a consultant to the show.
That’s not surprising, as all South Korean content is effectively banned in North Korea.
Kang says she found Crash Landing on You appealing for its realistic depictions of life in the North, including the language. As in real life, North Koreans in the drama, for example, call their intimate partners “comrade” instead of “honey.”
But differences in language from the South are a sensitive issue for the North Korean regime. It has fought for more than half a century to purge North Korea’s language of foreign influences, and for roughly two decades to keep out southern-style expressions that northerners are gleaning from bootlegged South Korean TV dramas, movies and K-pop music. [Continue reading…]
Clever hackers use a range of techniques to cover their tracks on a target computer, from benign-looking communication protocols to self-erasing software programs.
It’s not very often, though, that digital attackers turn to Morse Code, a 177-year-old signaling system, for operational security. Yet that’s exactly what played a part in a year-long phishing campaign that Microsoft researchers outlined on Thursday.
Morse Code — a method of representing characters with dots and dashes popularized by telegraph technology — was one of several methods that the hackers, whom Microsoft did not identify, used to obscure malicious software. It’s a reminder that, for all of their complexities, modern offensive and defensive cyber measures often rest on the simple concept of concealing and cracking code. Continue reading →
Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio
Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’sRadio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Peter Abzug, David Iurescia, and Dan Robinson for the following tips:
The Los Angeles Fire Department depends on help from amateur radio volunteers when fire threatens communications infrastructure. NPR looks at how ham radio operators are keeping residents safe.
Whether you’ve been with us since the beginning, or you’re just getting to know us: it’s you, and your faithful support, that has made KNOM America’s oldest Catholic radio station. Thank you!
KNOM has been broadcasting in Western Alaska since July 14th, 1971, when the station could first be heard in Western Alaska.
The continuing mission has been possible only by the hard work, sacrifice, dedication, and love of thousands of people: our staff and volunteers, listeners and community members, and thousands of loyal benefactors across the nation who keep the lights on and the transmitters running. KNOM stands on their shoulders.
[…]Fifty years into KNOM’s history, the radio station is deeply embedded in Western Alaska. As we look to the future, KNOM’s vision is to one day be ‘taken over’ by the region – existing entirely for, and by, Western Alaskans. As the very first song ever played on KNOM – “We’ve Only Just Begun”, by The Carpenters – proclaims, the mission is just getting started.
KNOM continues to live out its values each day – as it has for five decades – as a friend and companion offering respectful service based on Catholic ideals. It is centered on the four cornerstones of the mission: Encountering Christ, Embracing Culture, Empowering Growth, and Engaging the Listener.
KNOM continues in sharing God’s love for Western Alaska through embracing its strength and beauty and being invested, long-term, in the growth of the region.
By engaging each listener with respect and companionship, KNOM hopes to amplify stories of hope, courage, and resiliency in Western Alaska.
JEDDAH: The Saudi Radio plans to launch test transmission of a 24-hour Urdu service from the middle of September 2021, while the services will be formally launched on September 23, a Saudi official said.
The transmission will include programmes on Islam, the holy Quran, Ahadis and historical and world affairs.
Saudi Broadcasting Authority deputy chairman Faisal Ilyafi said this, while talking to a delegation of the Pakistan Journalists Forum (PJF).
The world transmission was started from the holy city of Makkah in September 1950 with a 15-minute slot for the Urdu programme, he said, and stressed that it is the need of the hour to face challenges and keep ourselves abreast of the changes in media.
The Saudi Urdu transmission has decided to continue its transmission on social media, such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, FM, Shortwave, Satellite, and Twitter, he added.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has given approval to the project under the supervision of Media Minister Dr Majid bin Abdullah Al Qasabi, he said, adding that the Saudi Information Ministry has also made several other languages part of the project.
The deputy chairman said any language has a supreme significance to disseminate news-cum-events, that’s why many foreign languages such as Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Hebrew and Chinese would be part of the transmission.[…]
Sea water diminishes the power of electrical transmission, challenges identified many years ago by the Navy and some of its partners who have been working on under communication for decades such as Northrop Grumman.
As Navy innovators work intensely to pioneer new methods of undersea communication, many might wish to reflect upon the decades of technical challenges associated with bringing any kind of undersea real-time connectivity to submarine operations. Historically, certain kinds of low-frequency radio have enabled limited degrees of slow, more general kinds of communication, yet by and large submarines have had to surface to at least periscope depth to achieve any kind of substantial connectivity.
The advent of new kinds of transport layer communications, coupled with emerging technologies woven into unmanned systems, are beginning to introduce potential new avenues of data processing and transmission intended to bring greater degrees of real-time undersea data transmission to fruition.
Sea water diminishes the power of electrical transmission, challenges identified many years ago by the Navy and some of its partners who have been working on under communication for decades such as Northrop Grumman. Northrop’s efforts date back to the World War II era and, along with the Navy and other industry contributors, helped pioneer the innovations that helped adapt RF communications architecture to sonar today. Considering this history, there are some interesting synergies woven through various elements of undersea warfare radio communications.
A 2014 essay by Carlos Altgelt, titled “The World’s Largest “Radio” Station,” details some of the historic elements of how the U.S. Navy pursued Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) undersea connectivity. Through its discussion of low-frequency ELF connectivity, the essay explains the technical challenges associated with undersea communication, which seem to align with how Northrop Grumman innovators describe how undersea communications will need to largely evolve in the areas of acoustics and optics.
As Altgelt notes: “As a result of the high electrical conductivity of sea water, signals are attenuated rapidly as they propagate downward through it. In effect, sea water ‘hides’ the submarine from detection while simultaneously preventing it from communicating with the outside world through conventional high-frequency radio transmissions. In order to receive these, a submarine must travel at slow speed and be near the surface, unfortunately, both of these situations make a submarine more susceptible to enemy detection.”[…]
Each Pyongyang household must report the number of TVs they own, and they face stiff punishments for hiding them
North Korea has ordered residents of the capital Pyongang to report the number of televisions in each household to stop them from watching banned shows from prosperous, democratic South Korea, sources in the country told RFA.
In North Korea, access to media from the outside world is strictly controlled, and TVs and radios are manufactured to only pick up domestic channels and must be registered with the authorities. But residents do find ways to access South Korean signals, either by using foreign televisions or modifying domestic ones.
Getting caught during routine inspections with a TV that can pick up illegal signals is a punishable offense. Residents with more than one television hide their illegal TVs during inspections, only to bring them out again to watch Seoul’s latest hot drama or variety show, former residents told RFA.
Authorities are aware of the deception and have issued a directive that every household in the city declare to their local neighborhood watch unit how many televisions they have.
“Residents are trying to hide them, but the judicial authorities are trying to find them. They are looking for TVs that can get South Korean TV channels in addition to the ‘official’ channels,” said a resident of Pyongyang, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
“Everyone knows that in Pyongyang, South Korean TV signals can be picked up in various areas,” the source said. He mentioned the Mangyongdae and Rangrang districts in the center of the city of 2.8 million.
In these areas the residents have been known to have two or three televisions in their homes, so they can watch the legal channels during inspections and watch South Korean broadcasts in secret,” the source said.
The source said that residents have developed clever ways to hide their illegal TVs.
