Film, Radio and TV - 21 |
InternationalShort-Wave
Most North American radios do not come equipped with the ability to receive these
signals. Fact is, you have to go out of your way to find radios that can tune into
short-wave. However, this programming has often changed the course of world events. Some countries have been so afraid of the information in these short-wave programs that they have spent billions of dollars to jam (electronically block it out) the broadcasts. North Americans, whose radios typically only receive AM and FM broadcasts, know little about these "battles in the ethers." Even in this Internet age a significant percentage of the world's population still depends on international short-wave for their information. Even so, ham radio operators are frequently called into service during disasters to relay critical information. Short wave radio can hook people up via telephones just as the Internet can through services such as Skype. Ham radio operators are often the first to tell the world about disasters and medical emergencies. Although these operators use
short-wave frequencies, in this module we'll focus on the high-powered, mass media-type, transmitters operated by governments, corporations, and private agencies
-- so called international short-wave. |
What Is International Short-Wave? |
During
the "cold war" you could clearly receive stations from Russia and China,
which were broadcasting more hours of short-wave programming than any other
country -- much of it directly to North America.
broadcasts in dozens of languages (listed below) from dozens of high-powered transmitters around the world.| Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Bosnian, Brazilian, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Burmese Central Africa, Chinese, Creole, Croatian, Czech, Dari, English to Africa, Estonian | Farsi, French, Georgian, Greek, Hausa, Hindi Horn of Africa, Hungarian, Indonesian, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, | Pashto, Polish, Portuguese to Africa, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swahili, Thai, Tibetan, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek. |
From the beginning, there has been an effort to insulate the Voice of America from political pressures. Its news content and balance
are carefully evaluated. It was felt that this was the only way that it could maintain credibility around the world.
Even so, it's alleged that political pressures have influenced content. In 2004, after a number of rival government-sponsored international broadcast services were started that could bypass this scrutiny, VOA staff members threatened to strike. They felt that if pro-government bias was detected in government-sponsored international broadcast services that the credibility of all U.S. international broadcasting would suffer.
The audio sample links previously provided above are through the Internet, which generally provides a much better sound than an actual
short-wave broadcast. 
This segment from Radio New Zealand International was taken off the air. It is available directly from this site and provides a more realistic
short-wave listening experience.
(This file requires that a RealPlayer program is installed on your computer.)
Religious Sort-Wave Broadcasts
Many
other short-wave broadcasters are religious. These are typically evangelical and
fundamentalist in nature, and supported by listener contributions. Some of the
radio evangelists listed in the previous chapter can also be heard on
short-wave.
The largest religious short-wave broadcaster is Vatican Radio, which programs in 40 different languages, makes use of two hundred journalists from 61 countries, and broadcasts into five continents. Pope Pius XI commissioned the inventor of radio, Guglielmo Marconi, to set up the Vatican radio system north of Rome more than 70 years ago.
Short-Wave Jamming Efforts
As we've noted, some countries fear a free flow of information. And, from the perspective of controlling beliefs through controlling information, their fears are justified.
The BBC and the VOA have broken major stories that were embarrassing to political dictatorships before their government agencies could prepare a version for their own broadcasts that was more acceptable to the leadership — although not necessarily true.
But, once a truth is out, it's difficult to convince people of "another truth," especially from a government suspected of not being totally truthful to start with.
|
In many countries it has been illegal to listen to outside newscasts.
Some countries have gone so far as to imprison citizens caught listening to international short wave and even to issue radios that could only receive government approved stations.
However, many people in these countries defy bans on listening to international short wave. In rural areas scores of people have short-wave radios hidden under beds, under floorboards, and behind walls.
Work slowdowns and drops in morale and productivity in totalitarian countries have come on the heels of major embarrassing revelations broadcast by such "free world" stations as VOA and the BBC. Defectors from these countries have verified that many of their people relied on these outside newscasts to find out what was really going on in the world -- and even in their own country.
With short-wave signals literally dropping down from the sky, it's difficult to block them out; but billions of dollars have been spent trying.
Jamming, or using transmitters on the same frequency, broadcasting such things as recordings of seagulls squawking, heavy machinery running, or just shrill annoying tones, have been common approaches in trying to obliterate outside newscasts and information. Less obvious is just broadcasting "throwaway" programs on the same frequency. (Generally, both programs become unintelligible.)
During the cold war the Soviet Union reportedly had 200 transmitting sites throughout Russia using more than 600,000,000 watts of power to jam the transmitters of Radio Free Europe (RFE) the VOA, the BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, KOL Israel, and Radio Tirana. Additional jamming transmitters were operated by other nations throughout the former Warsaw Pact.
According to estimates made by the BBC, almost a billion dollars was spent each year by Russia alone in trying to jam outside broadcasts.
|
As late as 2002, the Cuban government jammed the Voice of America's Radio Martí and the Chinese government jammed broadcasts made by adherents of Falun Gong.
Most of the countries that used to jam outside broadcasts have stopped and the focus has now shifted to trying to block materials from the Internet.
short-wave broadcasts don't have to rely on the huge antenna arrays pictured above. Lower-power transmitters on boats or in guerrilla hideouts (that regularly shift their locations) are sometimes used to try to destabilize governments. In fact, governments have fallen after
short-wave and standard AM, medium wave broadcasts to citizens have been used to coordinate uprisings.
Staying in Touch With
Your Spies Around the World
We might assume that using short-wave to stay in touch with secret
operatives around the world has been outdated by digital technology. It turns
out that this is not so, and for good reason.
Although it might be 1920's technology, there are many advantages to short-wave communications over the newer technologies. Unlike telephone or Internet connections, receiving a radio signal leaves no "fingerprint," no traceable phone connection, no IP address, and no other hint as to where the recipient might be. Plus, no fancy equipment is needed.
You can buy a short-wave receiver for about $40 and since short-wave signals travel around the world and come down most everywhere, you can't track down who is listening.
As late as 2010, coded short-wave transmissions were originating from several counties, including Russia and Cuba.
Great Britain has publicly admitted that its foreign intelligence agency, MI6, still uses so-called "numbers" stations that transmit series of spoken or Morse code numbers that can only be decrypted by recipients in possession of the ever-changing code books .
The ten alleged Russian spies arrested in 2010 in the United States had apparently used short-wave broadcasts to receive instructions. (As of this writing that case was still being investigated by U.S. authorities.)
Embedding Secret Information
Germany
jammed the BBC European service during the Second World War. During World War II, both sides regularly used secret
short-wave transmitters, typically with coded messages, to get reports from, and issue orders to, compatriots behind enemy lines. The broadcast of certain music selections at certain times would be used to communicate information to spies. (Today, secret messages are
often embedded into Internet music and photo files in a process called steganography.)
A less publicized audience for short-wave, consists of intelligence officers and agents who monitor short-wave broadcasts from suspect countries for hidden messages to foreign agents operating in the receiving country. There are agencies set up in the United States and Britain to monitor this.
In one case during World War II a desert cave outside of Landers, California where a hermit was living was blown up by law enforcement officials (with him in it) when it was assumed that the radio antenna he was using to get nearby stations in his remote location was some sort of a short-wave transmitter.
His radio (more knowledgeable people later determined) was only a basic AM radio receiver, and he was just a simple man who felt a need to get away from his former turbulent city life.
Although telephone, Internet, and satellite signals can be cut or monitored in a nation — and often are —
short-wave signals are far more difficult to monitor and control.
Plus, short-wave radios are relatively cheap and many people around the world
can't afford a satellite receiver, or an Internet hookup.
This
site lists the major international broadcasters.
In the next module we'll look at commercial radio programming.|
Use Limited to direct Internet access from CyberCollege® or the InternetCampus®
|
