RFA on North Koreans listening to RFA

From Kim Andrew Elliott:

Radio Free Asia vice president Dan Southerland interviews Russian historian Andrei Lankov, an expert on North Korea and RFA commentator: "Q: It seems to me there is still a role for radio. Defectors I have spoken with recently say that people in the elite are listening to Radio Free Asia. A: Radio is widely used, and it is very important that short-wave radios with free [instead of fixed] tuning are being smuggled. Radios are used largely by the elite—not by people who want fresh entertainment, but by people who want information about what’s going on outside of the country. So most listeners are intellectuals or officials or people who are serious about getting out of the country. Five or six stations broadcast into North Korea right now, and these stations are mostly listened to by these people. They are clearly a minority, but politically they are very significant … A person who has been making a bit of money by selling pancakes on the market may buy a DVD player and watch romances. But radio is for, say, a secret police captain who knows that the system is in trouble and wants to figure out what’s going on and how to save his skin. Radio broadcasting provides him with the intelligence he needs to do this. Q: We had some independent research last year showing that some of these border traders, some of these smugglers and so forth—they call themselves 'businesspeople' — are also listening to radio. It’s quite a significant percentage in a rather limited survey. A: If you look at people who are in China, you will see that radio listeners are overrepresented among this group when compared to the general population. Because if you go to China, you have to listen. Most of these people want to know the current trends." Radio Free Asia, 23 February 2009.

Shortwave show

Harry Shearer's favorite shortwave radio

Comic Harry Shearer (voice of several Simpsons' characters, etc.) is profiled in The New York Times style section for his love of this particular shortwave radio, the Sangean ATS-909. “This is my companion. I’ve always been more about functionality over looks. This has all the buttons I need and not much else. There is one that says ‘Page,’ and I’ve never pressed that. I don’t know what would happen,” he says.

R.I.P. Karlheinz Stockhausen

The composer Karlheinz Stockhausen died Wednesday, December 5 at his home in Germany at age 79. He composed 362 individually performable works, including his 1966 "Telemusik," an early influential transmission art work.

Composed in Tokyo in the electronic studio of Japanese Radio NHK. Stockhausen used shortwave radio transmissions to compose a work with which he wanted, "to take a step further in the direction of composing not ‘my’ music but a music of the whole Earth, of all countries and races." While Telemusik incorporates sounds from many countries including Japan, Sahara, Bali, Vietnam, China, the Amazons, Spain, and Hungary, Stockhausen does not consider this work to be a collage, but "Rather—through the process of intermodulation between old ‘found’ objects and new sound events which I made using modern electronic means—a higher unity is reached: a universality of past, present and future, of distant places and spaces: TELE-MUSIK." Telemusik consists of 32 structures (moments) incorporating shortwave radio transmissions. Additional equipment used for the realization of the electronic music was two beat frequency oscillators, three sine-wave generators, one delta generator, one function generator, one transposing tape recorder with a pilot frequency generator, two tape recorders, one amplitude modulator, two ring modulators, three high-pass and low-pass filters, one third-octave filter, one six-track tape recorder.

German radio broadcasts to Ethiopia “jammed” according to hobbyists

From Medianetwork blog:

Shortwave radio hobbyists have reported deliberate interference to the Amharic-language transmissions of Germany’s international broadcaster, Deutsche Welle (DW), beamed to Ethiopia. A US hobbyist noted “jamming” of DW’s signal on 11645 kHz on 14 and 15 November, and to DW’s Amharic broadcast on 15640 kHz on 15 November. (Glenn Hauser, DX Listening Digest, 15 November)

A German listener said the interference resembled a combination of sounds, “like bubble, motorboat, pips, and whistle buoy howl.” In a separate report, Ethiopian Review website reported on 13 November that VOA broadcasts to Ethiopia had been jammed since 12 November “with the help of the Chinese government that provided technicians and powerful radio jamming equipment.” (Source: BBC Monitoring research 16 Nov 07)

One of the last great shortwave events?

From Kim Andrew Elliott via AP:

"Several prominent show business personalities and celebrities of Myanmar also echoed their support of the protests via shortwave radio and called on the public to join the growing protest." AHN, 24 September 2007. "Two leading Burmese actors, comedian Zaganar and heart-throb movie star Kyaw Thu, came to Shwedagon yesterday to bring food and water to the monks, witnesses said. Both men had spoken on shortwave radio urging people to support the protests." AFP, 25 September 2007. "Win Min, a Myanmar analyst who teaches at Chiang Mai University in Thailand, said prominent Myanmar actors and celebrities had spoken on shortwave radio to throw their support behind the rallies and to urge the public to join." AFP, 24 September 2007. "From a warehouse-like building in Norway's capital, a tiny broadcast network called the Democratic Voice of Burma is struggling to provide news and encouragement to countrymen rising up against the military dictatorship at home." -- AP, 24 September 2007.