North Korea has retargeted its radio jamming program after the cessation in early July of propaganda broadcasts by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.
On July 30, jamming was observed against KBS Hanminjok Radio (KBS 한민족방송) and Voice of Freedom (자유의소리방송), which is run by the Ministry of National Defence.
North Korea jams programs by deliberately broadcasting noise on top of the radio station it is trying to block. The result is mixture of the intended program and the noise, which is typically annoying enough to stop people listening.
For example, here’s a recording of KBS Hanminjok Radio on 6,015 kHz shortwave early in the morning on July 29. If you listen carefully, you can hear the song “Havana” by Camila Cabello, but the signal is severely disrupted by the noise jamming, which sounds like a jet aircraft engine.
Until mid-July, the NIS had broadcast four radio stations into North Korea over a total of 15 frequencies. It used that many in an attempt to escape jamming.
For the jamming to be successful, North Korea needs to have a transmitter on air to match each frequency, so more frequencies makes it more difficult to completely silence a station. Typically, at least one or two of the NIS frequencies got through without being jammed.
Now those radio stations are off the air, the jammers are free to go after other radio stations. While Voice of Freedom was often targeted before, KBS programming was usually much less affected. That does not appear to be the case any longer.
Last week, the NIS told reporters that North Korea had stopped jamming the frequencies used by its prior broadcasts — this is not unexpected as there was nothing to jam anymore.
It added that its decision to end its broadcasting was prompted by North Korea’s decision in January 2024 to halt Pyongyang Broadcasting Station (평양방송). That was a North Korean propaganda station aimed at South Korea.
And the NIS signaled it wouldn’t soon be restarting broadcasts. “”If North Korea resumes broadcasting, we will respond, but we will not take the first step,” it said, according to KBS.
Although North Korea ended its broadcasts after Kim Jong Un concluded that peaceful unification was a lost cause. At the same time, he named South Korea a “primary foe” and reset relations with the south. The recent South Korean decision to end broadcasts appears to be aimed at enticing North Korea into talks, although that appears unlikely to happen.
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