The Not So Secret Short Wave Numbers Stations Of North Korea
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- Опубликовано: 11 апр 2023
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EP1
The Shortwave Stations Of The North Korean Defectors
• The Shortwave Stations...
EP2
The Clandestine Radio War Between North & South Korea
• The Clandestine Radio ...
EP3
Executed For Listening To The Radio In North Korea
• Executed For Listening...
EP4
The Not So Secret Short Wave Numbers Stations Of North Korea
• The Not So Secret Shor... 
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There are recordings of the English language VOK broadcasts on RUclips. It's a fascinating insight into the North Korean culture, hearing the kinds of things they *think* will impress Westerners. The one I listened to was dedicated to a school chess tournament and a bottle factory with an exemplary safety record.
If you'd share a link to a playlist, you'd be the best damn Dan on the web.
@@WvlfDarkfire the channel Radio Aficionado has a pretty large library of VOK broadcasts, of varying quality.
Wdym impress, I also listen to VOK and the programming is just music with a news segment like you'd hear on any other station.
It's not like they would think school chess or a good safety record is super astonishing.
@mx338 based solely on china's safety standards I can imagine nk is 1000x worse people probably die in factories daily so saying it's super safe would be impressive to them and he probably thinks we have the same problems he does
@@Chancellor_dumb That is false, China has a better safety record at 4.5 deaths per 100,000 workers, which is better than South Korea 5.09 and the USA at 5.29 according to the ADM Census of Fatal occupational injuries.
And why would it be impossible for bottle factory in the DPRK to have a good safety record, if the workers are all well trained and the factory is well managed?
Sweden, Cuba and Poland are not the only countries to acknowledge the existence of numbers stations. S05, the Czechoslovakian “OLX” station would actually send a QSL card to those who requested one!
The transmission within the radio program remind me of the "Deutscher Freiheitssender 904", a radio station of the GDR which transmitted nonsensical (though quite funny) messages within their normal radio program. They were designed to seam like messages to members of some underground organisation operating in west germany, linked to the banned communist party in the west. Appearently they managed to waste quite a bit of the western governments time until they realised that the messages were completly made up :D
Weaponized shitposting. Also probably the only communists with a real sense of humor.
Centrally planned socialist trolling😅
I was in West Germany then. First as an "Army Brat" then I joined... We were so close to the border we could hear East German AM/MW radio. It was really easy to surmise which was fake. They practiced a lot of English but every other sentence syntax was completely wrong. One could understand the message but our common reaction was something like "Nobody talks like that." Some were even grammatical wrong. I have some German friends who would say "Did they expect anyone to believe that?" The TV was interesting, thought. They had lots of stop motion animation, particularly for kids.
A mix of misinformation and disinformation- tactics which remain useful today. Even if it only wastes a few minutes per message - that’s a few minutes less that can be spent on viable messages or otherwise.
Being able to listen to the shortwave transmissions of this extremely closed country is what got me hooked to SWLing.
Same
Pie-on-Yang is like a local version of a Greggs Sausage Roll only with less filling
I love the way all the embassies look like fortified compounds, apart from the London one, which looks like the suburban house of a stockbroker. You can imagine the kids next door kicking the ball over the fence, and their mum knocking on the door asking for it back, lol.
I see the DPRK-ARQ signal quite often in the UK, often in the lunchtime/early afternoon hours. I think these signals are NK embassies and consulates calling home. I have logged them between 13 and 18 mHz, from near London.
Might get blasted for this but for non-morse-code-people -- CT means start of message, AR is end of message, and VA is end of transmission. TuSu.
Regarding speakers that "can't be turned off": back in the USSR days, I heard some ancient legends about the first generation of such receivers during Stalin's time. Those had primitive construction with a "volume knob" that just pushed on the membrane, dampening it somewhat; consequently, the speaker could only be made quieter so much, but not completely muted. In my time however (1980's) those were just regular speakers with volume control that could be turned off completely. However, there were also loudspeakers installed on streetlamps throughout town, wired to the same network, which were turned on occasionally to transmit radio programmes (usually on holidays). North Korea probably has a similar system, maybe even with imported/cloned Soviet equipment.
This is a nice story for a netflix series but it is not true. A russian here born in soviets. It is a wired radio, a speaker a volume knob and a switch. You can turn it off.
@@theuniqid Mmm, that's exactly what I wrote: the modern ones ARE just regular speakers that can be switched off, but google репродуктор for the old type. Note the knob in the middle, this is probably where the story comes from.
Речь про 30-е - 40-е годы, далеко не про наше время. Подобные репродукторы можно увидеть в различных музеях ВОВ и т.п. И даже городские легенды нередко не на ровном месте появляются.
Vietnam still has street speakers used regularly to this day.
Cable radios are really common in the Soviet world. Usually they transmit one modulated signal and have a simple volume/power switch control. Some networks have three channels which are modulated at 20, 40 and 60 kHz.
In fact, in Moscow, they are still found in new construction. It is easy to know what building has the radio substation which converts the 850V supply network voltage to 30V distribution voltage. The receiver sets are called radio points "радиоточка" and are sold at a subsidy from the government.
Ringway, just wanted to say your measured and paced presentation is very engaging. Your efforts and script writing is not unnoticed. I'm new to the hobby but have always been enthralled by wireless communication. So seeing that this isn't just another HAM radio channel but one that covers everything radio is very refreshing. You deserve this massive influx of growth.
Like #7. "The parrot" sounds like "the Angry North Korean News Anchor, Ri Chun Hee" hahahaha
Probably because it is Ri Chun-hee
Pie-on-Yang sounds like it would go very well with Burton-on-Trent
A twin city for Wigan perhaps...
we love it..
further down at Newark upon Trent 🙌🏻 😅
knocked cheesy chips an mushroom gravey
right off the Friday night on the lash. top spot 😅
@@andw2638
Wigan on yang
sounds kinda yerrrrbaby let's funk 🤩🕺🥳🤣🤣
Hey Ringway. I actually stopped by that FCC listening post in Columbia MD as mentioned in one of your previous videos and discovered something fairly interesting. That field to the left of the center building is actually mostly telephone poles. I don’t know if there are antenna on them, but they actually have 3-6 actual antenna masts.
@Gamers Unite - do you recall which video you’re referencing? I’m interested in checking it out. Thanks!
@@bmacd11b uhhh, I’ll have to get back to you on that. You local to the area?
@@bmacd11b ruclips.net/video/FcKCMfVJohI/видео.html this one. Time stamp 7:21
All television and radio remains analogue in North Korea. With the digital switchover in South Korea and China the people of North Korea don't get anything other than North Korea propaganda stations (I don't know if there are any digital television or receivers boxes in North Korea, it seems unlikely to happen). For those interested. It is possible to get Korean Central TV on satellite at 87,5E and 58,0W. This requires a C band receiver ability and dish of proper size (150 cm to 250 cm size).
Not true. 6.140 and 3.205 are broadcast in DRM. Also AM is still analog in South Korea and at night is almost certainly very easily received. The North is also audible in the South. 657 AM is audible in large parts of the South
@@fungo6631 not quite as bad. Russians can still listen to stuff from outside the country. Russia isn't full on hermit Kingdon, USSR level. Yet.
@@fungo6631 I'll have to check it out. Years ago Russia Today was pretty easy to watch on various platforms. In English. And their Shortwave broadcasts were some of the easiest to receive. Now Shortwave has gone and RT had been removed from most places. If they're even still operating under the same name
@@AndrewAbraham83 I've listened to 3205 on SDRs and if the reception conditions are good it then the audio quality is very good. The 90m band seems to be used in a similar way to medium wave in the DPRK. It occurred to me that North Korea might be considering making DRM radios that will only decode their own transmissions which would avoid the need to put tamper-proof seals on radios.
@@andw2638 No point. Very little on DRM. Biggest operator in the region is China and North Korea wouldn't be opposed to much of the Chinese Propaganda.
I suppose those frequencies could be used like MW. Ground wave would cover a large enough distance to be useful and cover much of the pacific at night with skywave.
Love your work, when you played the clip of the jammer at the end I immediately went "so that's what that was!" I used to play with my dad's shortwave capable transistor radio!
I work for a company that has us use walkeytalkeys every now and again we will jam the frequency we use to shut people up so we can take a smoke break in the time it takes for them to realize no one copied their last
My Uncle had an organ that could, in certain circumstances, hear SW transmissions - how I'll never know, something in the Ye Olde Technology therein, but this night it did & it was fascinating.
Id heard it first and said, until everyone STFU no one believed me but once they did *wow*
@Em Jackson my mum had a small amplifier on the old telephone and you could here the local AM station if you held the receiver to your ear and pushed the hang up button.
Don't those wired receivers remind you of the telescreens in 1984? Permanently wired into people's homes and workplaces, bringing you the voice of the Great Leader... I bet they're based on old Soviet technology. Fascinating video, Lewis!
what’s a telescreen
@@jessihawkins9116 Orwell wrote 1984 in the late '40s, imagining a device in every home like our flat screen TVs but this would be permanently switched on to broadcast state propaganda, only be able to be muted rather than turned off, and would have built-in technology to monitor the actions of every citizen on behalf of the ever-present Party to watch for disloyalty.
North Korea has the GDP of Burkina Faso so I really doubt they can afford such a thing
Not permanently wired. They can be unplugged, like you can see in the picture. The tech was used all around the world. The Soviet Union had a 1 (sometimes 2 with carrier wave) channel system (Радиоtочка) that ran all the way up until the late 2010s. The Netherlands had a 4 channel system (baseband, multi stranded wire) with larger, high quality loudspeakers. Many other european countries only had carrier wave systems that ran on frequencies between 300 and 400kHz that were transfered via the phone (or similar) lines.
@@mfbfreak Now that's interesting! Thanks for the description of the system.
1:13 it is not true they can't be turned off. The one shown can simply be unplugged from the cable radio outlet. It is a similar system to what was used in the Soviet Union and Russia until fairly recently (just several years ago). The russian word for it is "radiotoshka" or Радиоtочка and there's quite a lot of information to be found - although in russian.
The Netherlands had a similar system, though with 4 channels. It was a high quality alternative to standard radio, with a wider frequency range and of course no background noises or fading. Channels 1 and 2 were the dutch national stations, 3 and 4 were either a foreign station and/or a selection of programmes chosen by the PTT (national mail and telegraph company).
Per home there was 300mW of speaker power available. Although not a whole lot, it was still enough to fill a room with music because of the high quality loudspeakers used. If you needed more power, a speaker with built in 2w amplifier could be had. Popularity dwindled when cheap radios started becoming ubiquitous, that could also receive the pirate and other offshore radio stations and in 1972 they stopped altogether.
Keep up the good work! You're teaching and documenting so much. Love it when I see you made a new video.
Not a number station but when I was a kid I have fond memories of me and my dad listening to "the voice of Korea" late at night (I'm from France) , I was intrigued/scared by the station theme music
Great content Lewis!! Thanks for the channel!
Just subscribed I"ve bbeen watching your videos for months and just realized I hadn't
THIS IS WONDErFUL CONTENT
learning about radios and stations
I told my brother not to unwind the AM loop antenna, but he did anyway. Instead of receiving regular stations, we could listen to a government station that plays tones and some kind of messages.
I just discovered your channel, this is fascinating stuff - thanks for posting.
I’ve tune to dprk on shortwave once, it was around 5am around 2018, Northern California
I often pick up voice of korea here in Australia and its also a good baseline signal for testing propagation. It also has my favorite interval signal :P.
You mean propaganda???
@@Peter_Proudfoot yeah but I like the interval signal, that's literally the only reason lol
Those wall radios were known as "radio points" during socialism. You could unplug it from the wall, it was a pre-set antenna with a speaker box inside the home. I remember my grandma even having one such in the kitchen, pre-set to the Bulgarian main radio channel.
The sign off will be the prosigns AR for end of message and SK for end of transmission (VA is equivalent, but I've not seen it written like that before).
Voice of Korea is like a trip back to the 70s or 80s with the patriotic music. I'm sure any spoken content is similar, boasting of the 'great achievements' of the DPRK etc.
I know a little bit about commercial aviation radio transmission technology but your videos have opened my mind to a whole new world. Absolutely fascinating to watch
Great video!!! How do you come up with all this information? It amazes me how you put together these video, I love them.
Thanks so much for the video!
I was waiting for a video about North Korea and you have exceeded my expectations. Many thanks.
How could an org. called the RGB be so bad? It sounds so... _Colourful!_
@Ringway Manchester Is there a test and certificate at the end of this video series.
Send in your completed _I Spy on the Shortwave Band_ book with a stamped addressed envelope for your official certificate from the Five Figure Group.
@@nowster 😂
7:59 - I really like the fact that a laughable government felt it was a good idea to set up a number station whose broadcasts are just as laughable.
Hello from a wet and cool Mount Hood, Oregon. As always, another great video. So, is that radio by any chance a Kenwood TS-450 or a TS-690? My first HF was the TS-450. Keep up the great work. 73
The live presenter on the second voice station seemed very excited.
Hi Lewis, great video - content and production! I always find transmissions from the DPRK compelling listening because they're shrouded in so much mystery! 73, Clint
Great to hear from you Clint! Thanks for the kind words!
@@RingwayManchester You're welcome Lewis - your channel is superb! Easily one of the best radio-orientated channels on YT. 73!
Even the DPRK numbers stations have announcers that sound like they are trying to yell into your very soul
Like any DPRK broadcasts of shows and, well we all know the news lady's voice trying to read the news in a way that makes you feel shameful your parents had you, while also trying to hit a voice frequency that tries to break whatever you're listening on
Compared to anything from the ROK or just South Koreans I know/am related to
Who *can* put soft caring inflection in what they say
Even if I can't understand it, when they say something to me, it's like a warm blanket of "hey, it's cold, have this blanket, even though you don't speak but three words of Korean, and we still try to say everything in Korean"
Also love this channel, just found it, very glad I did, had to subscribe
Once again a very interesting video
Fascinating stuff, Lewis, thanks! Just wondering: Have you considered evaluating modern SW receivers, including standalone physical radios and SDRs? I realise it's not something you've done (and perhaps don't have much interest in). I know lots of people have already done so, but I'll bet no one would do so as thoroughly as you'd do. And I'm certainly not complaining, it's just a thought. Cheers! 🙂
It’s on my list :)
@@RingwayManchester Oh fantastic, mate, cheers!
Informative and creepy! And all at once fascinating!
Awesome lewis cheers
The appearance and vanishing of broadcasts itself is intelligence. Better to play random numbers than change up the pattern!
Great many thanks!
Thanks again
I find your video's very interesting. By the way, the picture of the German embassy in Pyongyang is not only the German, but also the Swedish embassy and judging at the plates it also houses 2 other embassies.
I’ve been getting back into shortwave listening after many many years away, and from here in Japan you just can’t escape North Korean broadcasts on the shortwave bands, they’re everywhere.
The number of Chinese SW stations is beyond sanity, but North Korea is a close second. I get to listen to their propaganda in 3 languages, lucky me!
Another great video on the subject.
Be interesting to see one of those authorised radios.
Calling Techmoan , Calling Techmoan
@@bobroberts2371 Good call. I bet he could even find one of those TVs too.
@@wisteela You know, he IS doing a series on " Things that come in cases " !! Tee Hee.
Thanks for this video it’s very interesting I guess you just have to keep listening you never know what you might here
Perfectly annunciated btw.
Pray tell, how did you convince the king to narrate this episode? I thought he was busy with the coronation. 😂
It's almost like Lewis is a native English speaker or something.
*Enunciated
Annunciation is a Catholic feast.
@@maean7410 nah. Pyong-Yang, strictly speaking hard P followed by Yong, yang would be 3 syllables anyway.
I thought it was pronounced poon tang! Glen Orchy is a favourite of mine incidentally 😂
Great video, mate. Just one piece of advice (if you don't mind). Spend 5 mins to learn how to pronounce foreign names if you are unsure of them. Pyongyang, for example.
Apartments in the Soviet Union also had the radios permanently installed.
Communism is truly a disease.
Many UK housing estates had Rediffusion which carried piped radio (and TV). Council house rents on the estate where my grandparents lived had a 20p deduction for this service and it had the 3 TV channels plus their area's local radio station. However these were a rebroadcast of broadcast radio and TV, whereas the NK piped radio is an additional service so could carry information not intended for foreign (or South Korean) ears - such as forthcoming visits by the Esteemed Leader, "requests" to take part in collection of the harvest or spontaneous celebrations of the increase of the choco ration, etc. I would expect the NK networks suffer from the same unreliability as other wired networks such as Rediffusion. not to mention the power cuts in the country which are no secret.
When Channel 4 was announced my grandmother had a letter from the council advising her to get a TV aerial put up because the Rediffusion would be shutting down, followed several months later by another saying that the council would be removing aerials that had not been erected in what they considered a satisfactory manner.
Do you have a source for this?
@@laceflower_ people I know who grew up in the Soviet Union. Also, an interesting and informative RUclips channel….Ushanka Show
@@Goaway863 ok cool I'll look it up
I've never been to North Korea, although my dad was in the Korean war. He has nothing positive to say about the communist government there. The feeling I get from watching video about the DPRK is that it might as well be on another planet. I can only imagine what it is like to live under subjugation and in fear every moment of your life.
THE NUMBERS, MASON. WHAT DO THEY MEAN?!
My dad was stationed in South Korea in the late 80s and when he had free time he would tune in to shortwave radio stations and was fascinated by North Korean stations and I'm gay
Excellent
Fascinating!
Have you done a video on burst transmissions?
i have heard a North Korean siren type jammer while listening to SW radio in the Philippines .. i think it was used to stop anyone from listening to either Taiwan or KBS World Radio, can't remember which
Some of them use (sometimes) not encrypted signal if the message is not important. I happened in the past. They use in this case some kind od FSK modem. Its rare but happened.
Very interesting!
The fifth caller will receive tickets for a trip to Pyongyang!
Appreciate the big D red rocket bottom right of the thumbnail : that's propaganda that not afraid to swing its tagger.
How about "New Star Boadcasting Station"?
Gives new meaning to the phrase 'they're playing our song'.
I have a few DPRK English language broadcasts in my collection, but I haven't heard a new one in a long time. They're getting slack with their press releases as well. Too bad, because they had some of the best propaganda since the Soviet Union. Nobody calls me a capitalist American running dog anymore. It makes me miss the good old cold war days.
Did you manage to pick up VOK (in English ideally) on SW in Manchester?
Genuinely curious to try and pick it up myself 😅
I'm waiting for North Korea to start their own musical phenomenon called DPRK-Pop...
Actually it's DPOP or DPRPOP
It won’t be good. That’s for sure.
My ex was a translator for the USAF and they once told me that when posted in SoKor, they would listen to NoKor transmissions all day. Apparently NoKor had (has?) a lot of missile failures and ineptitude within its ranks.
Are we sure that the Morse "VA VA" at the end of the signals isn't actually "SK SK"? The series of dits and dahs are the same and SK is the standard signoff message.
God bless dear leader!!
The most shocking thing I learned from this video is that other countries, like Germany, have an embassy INSIDE North Korea. I bet the Germans who have to work there are not the happiest people.
The north Korean embassy in Warsaw is a weird place. Walked past it a few time.
Fenced off, inside it looks more like a regular commie block rather than an embassy. Saw some women in traditional Korean dress on one of the balcony of the apartments.
Huge radio antenna on the roof.
Weird. They live in a little NK enclave in the city surrounded by modern apartment blocks. They see every day the vast difference in wealth.
as far as I know the German embassy to North Korea has been unstaffed for a while now. I think starting with covid?
Good video, but you got a little confused about CW (Morse code) prosigns. The station doesn't sign off with "VA" (..._ / ._), but with the prosign SK (... / -.- )..."end of transmission" aka "Silent Key."
Just curious. Does NK not have access to some of the communications technologies that other countries use for consular communications? For example burst transmissions. I mean, Morse, in this day and age?
i hear that on my old walkmann at 2 am CET
I have a quick question. How will they now when you are watching / listening to different tv-program or radio?
Does DPKR make podcasts? 😅
I heard Voice of Korea on 13.650mhz....i been hearing Korea (North and South)..in the 7mhz band in the morning....also China and Japan...7.225mhz is Japan...(NHK1)....China (China Radio International)..on various frequencies....On 13.650mhz Voice of Korea at 9:00am Pacific Time opens with Song of Kim...
The Soviet Union discouraged radio ownership by giving people in apartments news and entertainment through an extra phone line. It went to a speaker which fortunately could be turned off. If your apartment or house had one of these then there was no need to own a radio, right?
So why did they have domestic radio stations at all then?
@@JakobMusick Because it was not possible to wire an extra phone line to every house and every apartment in the largest country on Earth.
This is almost correct: there were dedicated "wired radio" lines which followed a different standard of its own, not phone lines and not even anything similar. Mind you, many Soviet apartments in large cities and MOST apartments in smaller settlements didn't have phones at all. At the same time, almost every apartment anywhere had this "cable radio" installment, even in remote villages. Because propaganda.
@@alphazulu2978 What "standard" did they follow?
@@scottlarson1548 The corresponding Soviet GOST standard :) Basically, a wide-area PA speaker system. Apartments had 30 or 15 (in Moscow) Volts-rated "radio sockets". The signal was distributed from the nearest Radio Office via a network of transformers. There were 480V, 240V, and 120V feeders with step-down transformers along the way. Apartment buildings had them installed on the roof usually. You can still see these wires dangling high between apartment blocks in the former USSR, however, the installation has not been mandatory since the 90s, and the network has become mostly neglected. Well, that's all I can remember right now (born and raised in the USSR) and probably all there is to know about the subject. :)
Cool!
I've heard its illegal to pay for a bbc tv licence
You mean it should be.
They transmit on FM. Is this so the signal won’t travel far? Are these signals meant for people within the nation?
I listened to this very carefully and, apart from the bits that were in Korean, I understood every word. Great video Lewis. Thanks.
If every house has to play the radio can it be overpowered with a different msg?
All radios broadcasting have no advertising. Sounds like bliss.
We are interrupting our usual program to bring an important message to agent 27. Please report back to secret service headquarters. And now, back to our regular program....
6:30 Outdated? North Korea? No way! Bwahahaha.. 😂some wee came out 🤣
8:01 Duck Symphony WTF
If they had listened to this in the 2013 remake of Red Dawn..... they'd have been prepared.
I am somewhat surprised North Korea jams Chinese radio signals.
What is the cb radio seen in this video ?
Why are North Koreans always yelling 😮
Hi Lewis. Just a question. You say M40 ended tx with AR AR VA VA… but wouldn’t it be more likely to end with AR AR SK SK? That’s a more typical end to a transmission and of course VA does sound like SK. Thanks so much for your video. 73 de GM5AUG
Hey Michael, I can only go off what sources say but you could be right. Unfortunately I never found a recording publicly 👍🏻
A really poor ("clumsy"), "first" could make "SK SK" ("SSS KANG A ROO" [x2]), sound like "VA VA" ("VEE VEE VEE VAAH SAY AAHH" [x2]).
Could be done for a few different "reasons", too.
1:06 USSR had that all over the soviet union and they can be turned off
"Outdated"??? It's extremely effective!
8:42 yoo is that the eiffel tower 😳
I wonder if there's a way to sintonize with theses short waves radios, Like, what northkoreans listen to? How a average north korean song sounds like, how the radio is there and how they manages to pass propaganda in the most subtle way possible
Are they still broadcasting voice of Korea in different languages on MW or LW?
I just had a look at their website, it served me pages in English.
Fixed-frequency receivers were also issued in German-occupied Netherlands in WW2 … and I think only to Dutch Nazi party members… others had to hand their radios in!