Radio Jamming in Korea - Radio Jamming in North Korea

Radio Jamming in North Korea

Since it is illegal for North Koreans to listen to anything other than state-run radio, all legal radio receivers are sold fixed so they can tune only to channels approved by the government. Because the receiver channels are fixed, North Korea does not need to jam any South Korean private television and radio broadcasts (such as MBC, SBS, etc.). North Korea does jam some of South Korea's state-owned radio and television broadcasts (namely KBS1 Ch. 9 KBS2 Ch.7 KBS Radio 1 711kHz and 97.3MHz, KBS 1FM 93.1MHz, KBS Radio 2 603kHz/106.1MHz, KBS 2FM 89.1MHz KBS Radio 3 1134kHz/104.9MHz, KBS Radio Social Education 6,015kHz and Korean Forces Network 96.7MHz). Before the (early 2007) closure of South Korean shortwave domestic radio broadcasts (which were often targeted at the North) 3930 kHz KBS Radio 1 and 6015 and 6135 kHz KBS Radio Korean Ethnicity (formerly KBS Radio Social Education) had been severely jammed by the North.

The type of the jamming on shortwave is 'Jet Plane Noise', which makes it very hard to hear the radio broadcasts. North Korea also jams South Korea's clandestine shortwave broadcast, Echo of Hope, and the South Korean international shortwave broadcasts of KBS World Radio on 5975 kHz (discontinued as of early 2007) and 7275 kHz. The South Korean national radio channel, KBS Radio 1 on 711 kHz medium-wave is also jammed by the North. Before the bilateral declaration in 2000, KBS Radio 1 used to deliver certain programmes (merged with then KBS Radio Social Education) which condemned the North Korean regime at midnight. A visitor to coastal areas of the Yellow Sea (covering coastal parts of Gyeonggi Province, Incheon, Chungcheong, and sometimes Jeolla regions) who tunes into 711 kHz (KBS Radio 1 Seoul) may hear strange beeping sounds, which seem to be jamming signals from the North.

The North does not usually jam the medium-wave transmissions of South Korea's broadcast towards-the-North, KBS Radio Korean Ethnicity (formerly KBS Radio Liberty Social Education) on 972 and 1170 kHz. KBS Radio Korean Ethnicity no longer targets North Koreans since the North-South Korea Joint Declaration on 15 June 2000. As of 15 August 2007, the radio channel has changed to a special radio broadcast for the Russian Far East and Northeast China, where nearly three million Koreans in China and several hundred thousand Koryo-saram (ethnic Koreans in Central Asia) live.

North Korean jamming of television broadcasting is relatively unusual, although the North Korean regime once severely jammed a South Korean state-owned television broadcast (KBS 1TV on VHF ch. 9 in Seoul) in the 1970s. Currently there seem to be some strange signals on VHF ch. 9 (KBS1) as well as VHF ch. 7 (KBS2) in Seoul which seem to be North Korean's jamming, especially in the evening. This jamming is not very effective.

Because of electricity shortages in North Korea, the radio jamming activities are not always consistent and are sometimes interrupted by power failures.