Radio
Some North Korean external radio, jamming reportedly off air
Jul 22nd
Numerous broadcasts of North Korea’s external radio service and some of the country’s jamming of foreign radio stations has been off air in the last few days, according to several reports.
Voice of Korea, which broadcasts in several languages on shortwave to audiences outside of the country, missed many of its scheduled transmissions on July 20 and July 21.
On a typical day the station uses as many as eight transmitters simultaneously to beam its programming around the world, but on July 20 a radio monitor in Bulgaria noted only had two on the air at any one time. A day later, on July More >
South Korea’s jamming of North Korean radio
Jul 13th
Tuning into Pyongyang Broadcasting Station on 657kHz in Paju, South Korea.
North Korea’s attempts to block the flow of information from the outside world to its people are well know and well documented, but much less known is South Korea’s attempts to keep its citizens from having unrestricted access to media from North Korea.
The country’s national Internet firewall makes it fairly easy to keep curious South Korean eyes away from sites like the Korean Central News Agency and Rodong Sinmun, but what about radio waves that travel freely across the border?
It turns out the South Korean government doesn’t want its people More >
Ham radio operators to refine DPRK plans
Jul 2nd
Members of the Intrepid DX group hold their banner next to a monument in the DPRK. (Image: P5 Project blog)
Two ham radio operators hoping to get permission to set up a temporary amateur radio station in North Korea have returned from a trip to the country and have plans to visit again.
Paul Ewing (N6PSE) and David Flack (AH6HY) of the “Intrepid DX” group wrote that they will refine their proposal and “continue to communicate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.”
The two want permission to lead two groups of twelve people each on a More >
WRN ends Voice of Korea relays
Jun 22nd
London-based World Radio Network appears to have ended its relays of the Voice of Korea, North Korea’s international shortwave radio service.
The broadcasts appeared in May and were being recorded by WRN from Voice of Korea’s daily English-language shortwave broadcasts. Voice of Korea puts out a daily hour-long program in English each day and it’s relayed several times to listeners around the globe.
The shortwave signal meant sometimes poor audio quality, but the WRN website was the only place on the Internet offering the program on-demand. Voice of Korea’s own website has news and music clips but not the entire broadcast.
At the time, WRN More >
Ham radio operators hope to put North Korea on the air
Jun 11th
A group of amateur radio operators are hoping to get permission from the North Korean government for a month-long trip to the country during which they’ll set up a ham radio operation.
If they manage to pull off the plan, they’ll have succeeded where few have before.
North Korea has no amateur radio operators and government-sanctioned transmissions by foreigners in the country are extremely rare. This makes North Korea the rarest country for contacts in the amateur radio world.
The project is still in the planning phase but is being led by operators with experience of both North Korea and operating in usually closed countries. More >
Voice of Korea’s shortwave broadcasts now on-demand
May 28th
The daily English-language broadcast from North Korea’s international radio station, Voice of Korea, is now available on the Internet.
The programme is being carried by World Radio Network, a London-based organization that rebroadcasts material from international radio stations on its own satellite channels and via FM relays in several countries.
Most of the WRN programming is received in studio quality via satellite or Internet, but the Voice of Korea programs are a recording from the shortwave broadcasts.
That means they come with all the atmospheric interference and fading that is typical of shortwave.
For the daily news, the audio clips on the Voice of More >
US wants VOA, RFA transmitter in South Korea
Apr 11th
The organization that runs America’s international broadcasting services wants to build a transmitter in South Korea to give Voice of America and Radio Free Asia a better signal into the DPRK.
The Broadcasting Board of Governors disclosed the plan in its annual budget request, which was published on Wednesday.
The plan, if realized, could mean a substantially stronger and more reliable signal for the two stations, but is likely to attract jamming by North Korean authorities.
The BBG is seeking to construct a new medium wave transmitter in South Korea. This transmitter, optimally situated in a location near the border with North Korea, would More >
Voice of Korea on KPA nuclear statement
Apr 4th
The Korean People’s Army statement issued through KCNA on Thursday threatening nuclear weapons use in retaliation for any U.S. attack was repeated on the Voice of Korea shortwave radio program of the DPRK the same day, but it didn’t rank anywhere near the top news of the day.
Leading off the English-language newscast was details of the plenary meeting of the central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea. The news then progressed to a number of new laws passed by the Supreme People’s Assembly. Item five on the nuclear weapons law might be of interest to some.
The army statement came More >
Voice of Korea mid 2013 full schedule
Apr 2nd
Voice of Korea switched to its mid-2013 broadcasting schedule as of March 31. A couple of days ago I published the frequencies for English-language programs based on my own monitoring, and now we have the full plan for all languages.
The broadcasts follow the same basic line-up each day.
:00 Opening signal, station identification: “This is Voice of Korea” :01 National Anthem :03 Song of General Kim Il Sung :06 Song of General Kim Jong Il :09 News, editorials (approx 15 minutes, but can be extended to full broadcast), followed by music :30 Reminiscences of Great Leader President Kim Il Sung of More >
Voice of Korea dumps own player, adopts Flash
Mar 26th
The website of Voice of Korea, the DPRK’s international shortwave radio service, has dumped its proprietary software player.
The site previously required use of the player by users to hear its audio clips posted online (see, right), but that’s not now the case.
Users can now listen with Flash, and that opens the audio up for the first time to Mac and Linux users. It also means that Windows users who were uneasy about downloading a North Korean software package onto their computers can now listen to the audio.
Users don’t have to download the linked Flash package. Flash can be downloaded from More >
