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# KASHMIR # KIRIBATI # KOREA NORTH # KOREA SOUTH # KOSOVO # KUWAIT

 

KASHMIR
Azad Kashmir Radio
heard at various times on three frequencies --- 792, 936 and 4790. All three at times have separate programing. 4790 was heard as early as 0300 and closes after relaying 1700 Radio Pakistan news (but not on continuously between those times). 936 closes after relaying 1800 Radio Pakistan news. Listed 7265 not heard.
V. of Jammu and Kashmir Freedom, 5102 heard closing as scheduled at 1430. Very strong signal, suggesting from Islamabad site, as indicated in WRTH 2006 page 527. Usual poor Pakistani modulation.
Chris Greenway, Islamabad, Pakistan, Feb BDXC-UK Communication via DX Listening Digest 6-028 (11/2-2006)
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KIRIBATI
From Norwegian DX-er Geir Stokkeland I received the following link:
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200808/s2342309.htm
Too bad if they have to close down MF operations.
Bjarne Mjelde, Berlevag, Arctic Norway arcticdx.blogspot.com via dxld yg (31/8-2008)
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KOREA NORTH
[non]. RFA start MW service for N. Korea --- Mr. Ohtake of JSWC obtained the following information from RFA directly. RFA is to begin its Korean service on MW for the first time from Mar. 2.
1500-1900  1350 kHz
2100-2200  1350 kHz
de Shinya Hasegawa --- This transmitter site where I think is Mongolia.
S. Hasegawa, NDXC-HQ, Feb 29, dxldyg via DXLD
RFA Korean on MW --- Mr. Toshimichi Ohtake of JSWC was informed the following by A. J. Janitschek at his direct visit to Radio Free Asia in Washington. RFA will commence their first MW transmission on mediumwave directed to Korea on March 2. 1500-1900, 2100-2200 on 1350 kHz. The exact location of the transmitter is not announced. They are asking for reception reports for this transmission from the neighboring countries. Send the reports via http://www.techweb.rfa.org or qsl @ rfa.org
Comment: This decision may somewhat be related to Mr. Kim Andrew Elliott's article in DXLD 8-027.
Takahito Akabayashi, Tokyo, Japan, March 1, DXLD
WRTH 2008 MW frequency list shows no Mongolian transmitter on 1350, so that would be new. There is a S Korean on 1350 with 10 kW, bad luck for it; plus China and Russia, but nothing very powerful. How about PAL? Nothing there either; lists only three other MW frequencies in the entire country! WRTH has only two. Could 1350 be the same 500 kW
transmitter as on 990, which is supposedly in use for only a few hours a day?
Glenn Hauser, OK, DXLD
Mongolia QTH? Somehow, I doubt. I believe it's a bit too far from a target country for a reliable MW reception, considering that N. Korea isn't shy about jamming foreign broadcasts. Besides, China might get into a jamming game with two millions Koreans on their own turf. Of course, for RFA this initiative might be more about spending the
allocated funds with a bit of good publicity than reaching the closed society. In such a case Mongolia is as good a bet as any far-away country.
Sergei Sosedkin, IL, dxldyg via DXLD
Distance Ulanbataar MNG to KRE is about 1100 km ! I guess Vladivostok Tavrichanka-RUS - nominal on 1377 kHz - but to be retuned 27 kHz down to 1350 kHz during local night time - a decade ago 75/150 kW, is in use during that slot. 1350 which is a nearly empty channel in northern Korea. Is 140 km distance from KRE border and 650 km to Pyongyang capital. [or Razdolnoye-RUS site 155 km from border]
Wolfgang Büschel, BC-DX via DXLD
1100 km is not too far for 500 kW skywave! Oops: per my NGS Globe, it is about 1120 MILES from UB to Pyongyang, i.e. 1800 km.
Glenn Hauser, DXLD
Yes. I'm anxious about reception condition. Free North Korea Radio test broadcasted on 1350 kHz via Ulaanbaatar last year. But, the reception condition was bad in S. Korea. The RFA relay from Russia is declined before. China is not thought about. I think with the Mongolia or S. Korea which the President changed. Russia consented to the relay of VOA, but I heard the information that they refused relay of RFA.
S. Hasegawa, NDXC, March 1-2, dxldyg via DXLD
I see that 1350 kHz appears in the Asian frequency list on page 536 of WRTH 2007, as 150 kW from UB, MR-1 program. But not on the Mongolia pages. In the WRTH 2008, it has been removed from the frequency list on page 516.
Glenn Hauser, March 1, DXLD
Dear DXers, These were the VOA Korean frequencies at the beginning of B07 season:
1200-1300 UT 5890 7235 9555
1300-1400 UT  648 5890 7235 9555
1400-1500 UT 5890 7235 9555
1900-2100 UT 6060 7110 7135
Now when you go to VOA's website:
http://www.voanews.com/english/about/frequenciesAtoZ_k.cfm you'll see the following freqs for Korean:
1200-1300 UT 1350 5890 7235 9555
1300-1400 UT  648 5890 7235 9555
1400-1500 UT  648 5890 7235 9555
1900-2100 UT  648 6060 7110 7135
Conclusion: VOA Korean expanded using MW frequencies: 648 kHz from Russia and NEW 1350 kHz from unID transmitter.
Best regards! Dragan Lekic from Serbia, March 1, dxldyg via DXLD 8-028 (1/3-2008)
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KOREA SOUTH / U S A
VOA wins powerful base for broadcasts into N.Korea: HLAZ (?) to Rescue.
SEOUL, South Korea –
Voice of America has boosted its radio broadcasts into North Korea this year by transmitting from Seoul with support from a South Korean president who has taken a hard-line stance against the reclusive communist regime.
President Lee Myung-bak's administration is allowing the U.S. government-funded broadcaster to use transmission equipment in South Korea to send its dispatches into the North for the first time since the 1970s.
That makes the signal much clearer than VOA's long-running shortwave broadcasts from far-flung stations in the Philippines, Thailand and the South Pacific island of Saipan. Moreover, it's an AM signal, so listening in doesn't require a shortwave radio.
"Radio can play a big role in changing people," said Kim Dae-sung, who fled the North in 2000 and is now a reporter at Free North Korea Radio, a shortwave radio broadcaster in Seoul. "Even if it's simply news, it's something that North Koreans have never heard of."
Still, the move could be seen as yet more provocative policymaking by a government already at loggerheads with the North over Lee's tough policy on Pyongyang, and comes at a time of heightened regional tensions over North Korea's plans to launch a rocket early next month. Nuclear envoys from South Korea and Japan flew to Washington for talks Friday with top U.S. diplomats about North Korea.
"North Korea will see this as meaning that the South's government is trying to overthrow the regime by uniting strength with U.S. hard-liners," said Paik Hak-soon, an analyst at the private Sejong Institute think tank outside Seoul.
Information control buttresses North Korea's autocratic rule. Radios in the country come with prefixed channels that receive only government signals brimming with propaganda and praise for leader Kim Jong Il.
But some listen to outside broadcasts using radios smuggled in from China or by removing the frequency jammers on their state-issued radios, despite the risk of harsh punishment, including incarceration in North Korea's notoriously grim political prison camps.
VOA, founded in 1942 with a broadcast in German, now has programs in 45 languages. During the Cold War, it targeted listeners in totalitarian states. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, it has focused on countries where radio and TV news is government-controlled and outside news sources are banned.
Since Jan. 1, VOA has been using the antenna facilities of the Far East Broadcasting Company-Korea, a Christian evangelical radio station, for half of its three-hour nighttime broadcast into the North. The antenna is only 40 miles (65 kilometers) from the border.
"I think it's getting deeper into the North in better quality," said Park Se-kyung, head of the Northeast Asian Broadcasting Institute, an association of radio experts monitoring broadcasts in the region.
The broadcast is mainly news, with a focus on North Korea, such as its ongoing nuclear standoff with the United States and other nations.
South Korea prohibited VOA from broadcasting from its soil for carrying a 1973 report on the kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung, then a leading South Korean dissident. The authoritarian Seoul government at the time is widely believed to have been behind the abduction.
Upon becoming president of democratic South Korea in 1998, Kim ushered in a "sunshine policy" toward the North that called for cooperation and engagement. The warming of relations won him the Nobel Peace Prize.
But President Lee has taken a far tougher line on North Korea since taking office in February 2008, a stance that has opened the way for VOA to resume transmissions from the South.
Some radio experts say VOA's arrangement with the Christian station violates a South Korean ban on broadcasters relaying foreign signals.
But Kim Jung-tae, an official with the Korea Communications Commission, justifies his agency's decision to allow the VOA broadcast on the grounds that local networks are allowed to fill up to 20 percent of their airtime with foreign programming.
Joan Mower, VOA's public relations director in Washington, D.C., described the project as "a routine arrangement, similar to thousands of other arrangements VOA has worldwide."
Broadcasting via South Korea helps VOA "expand its reach to audiences inside North Korea," she said by e-mail.
Reporters Without Borders announced this week that the France-based media watchdog group and the European Union will support three Seoul-based radio stations targeting North Korea, including Free North Korea Radio, with about 400 million won ($290,000).
"These radios are one of the few hopes to create a real evolution in the country. Without that, the North Koreans don't know what is going on in the world and they don't know even what is going on in their own country," said Vincent Brossel of Reporters Without Borders.
North Korea condemns such broadcasts as "U.S. psychological warfare" and often jams the signals. So far, it has not interfered with VOA's new AM broadcast, said radio expert Park. Doing so requires more equipment than blocking shortwave signals, and the fact that North Korea isn't doing so may indicate the North is struggling economically, he said.
Park said he supports the broadcasts.
"North Korean people have the right to information," he said. "Providing correct information to people in a closed nation is what democratic nations should do."
Associated Press writer
Kwang-tae Kim contributed to this report via Radonezh, dxld yg (28/3-2009)

When the transmitter is situated just 65 kms from the border it can't be HLAZ 1566 kHz on Jeju Island south of the South Korean mainland. Must be via the HLKX 1188 kHz in Seoul.
Ydun Ritz (28/3-2009)
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KOSOVO
Kosovo 1413
re transmitter plans: The main problem here is that of funding. The old transmitter on 1413 kHz was bombed during the war and to rebuild it would cost some 6 million euros. The transmitter is much needed, but there are no funds. We will carry on with the existing transmitter, which does not have too much power and provides a reasonable coverage only of the nearby area.
Station engineer via Ullmar Qvick, Feb ARC Info Desk via DXLD 6-037 (27/2-2006)
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KUWAIT
Re 8-030, new antenna: Meant for 1593 kHz installation? At present used by old-Holzkirchen Continental 150 kW unit, IBB Arabic to Iraq 350 degrees.
See on page 2, far NW corner of the IBB KWT installation, 2 tower array?
http://fs2.fbo.gov/EPSData/BBG/Synopses/5565/BBGCON3607S6415-KSH/Attachme.pdf
Or is meant on new MW 1386 kHz installation, the former Harris 600 kW unit from Kavalla Greece site? See page 5, under C.1.3.3 Antenna System, approx. 55 degrees towards Mashad, Samarkand, Tashkent, on the NE corner:
http://fs2.fbo.gov/EPSData/BBG/Synopses/5565/BBGCON3607S6415-KSH/Part_I_-.pdf
Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, DXLD
The frequency of the transmission is a critical factor in the design and dimensions of any MW antenna, and should be known and specified from the outset.
Glenn Hauser, OK, DXLD
see also http://mediumwave.info/newsarchive_k.html
1386 kHz MW installation at approx. 55 degrees according my circle graphometer. Most likely meant for FARDA program to eastern part of Iran.
Arabic to IRQ 1593 150 kW Continental unit from former Holzkirchen-GER site. 2 tower 350 degr.
Arabic SAWA 1548 600 kW Harris former Rhodes-GRC site unit. 7 tower array in 323 degr.
Persian? FARDA in future 1386 600 kW Harris former Kavalla-GRC site unit. 3 tower array approx. 55 degr.
Wolfgang Büschel, Germany, Mar 6, BCDX March 8 via DXLD 8-031 (9/3-2008)

KUWAIT
IBB MEDIUMWAVE STATION IN KUWAIT TO GET NEW ANTENNA ARRAY .
The US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), intends to negotiate a competitive contract for the construction of three equipment shelters, installation of Radio Frequency (RF) transmission line, and related tasks for a new
mediumwave three-tower antenna array
at the IBB transmitting station in Kuwait. The transmitter site is located 40 km NW of Kuwait City. Full details at
http://www.fbodaily.com/archive/2008/03-March/06-Mar-2008/FBO-01522950.htm
Andy, Media Network blog March 5th via DXLD 8-030 (5/3-2008)

KUWAIT
Per ITU - Geneva Plan New GP update at
http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/publications/brific-ter/files/ge75/2007/GE75_116.pdf
1386 kHz, IBB wants to use this frequency with 10 kW at 47E41 29N31. This frequency will rather be used with much higher power -ed/
ARC Information Desk 10 Sept 2007 edited by Olle Alm, Sweden, via DXLD 7-113 (18/9-2007)

KUWAIT
The US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), intends to install antenna towers for a new mediumwave three-tower antenna array at the IBB transmitting station in Kuwait, and is now soliciting bids.
More details:
http://www.fbodaily.com/archive/2007/07-July/04-Jul-2007/FBO-01332596.htm
Andy, Media Network Weblog (9/7-2007)

KUWAIT
BBG's budget request for fiscal year 2008 officially confirms that 1386 will be used for Radio Farda:
"An existing 600 kW transmitter and antenna towers have been deployed from Greece for use in constructing a new medium wave facility in Kuwait. Radio Farda broadcasts from this facility are expected to begin in FY 2008."
Official info via Kai Ludwig, dxld yg (20/5-2007)

KUWAIT
IBB MOVES MEDIUMWAVE TRANSMITTER FROM RHODES TO KUWAIT.
The Broadcasting Board of Governors/International Broadcasting Bureau's Office of Contracts intends to negotiate and award a non- competitive contract to Harris Corporation, Broadcast Communications Division, to re-commission and change the frequency of the Harris DX600 transmitter that IBB has relocated from Rhodes, Greece to
Kuwait. Harris Corporation originally delivered and installed the same transmitter at Rhodes in 1995, and also provided three essentially identical (two were larger) transmitters at other IBB sites. The transmitter at Rhodes used to operate on 1260 kHz, but was taken out of service last year. In Kuwait, it will operate on
1386 kHz.
Source:
BBG/IBB via FBO April 6th, 2007 by Andy, Media Network blog via DXLD 7-043 (6/4-2007)

KUWAIT
As far as I am aware, 1593 via KWT only has Persian at 1600-1900, and this is VOA and not Farda. At other times it is in Arabic, English and Kurdish.
Noel Green-UK, via Wolfgang Büschel, DXLD
IBB Kuwait 1593 kHz
150 kW 350 degrees (ex-Holzkirchen Germany Continental unit).
0000-0100 VOA En, 0100-0600 RFE Arabic IRQ special.
1300-1400 VOA Kurdish, 1400-1600 RFE Arabic IRQ special.
1600-1900 VOA Persian, 1900-2000 VOA Kurdish,
2000-2200 RFE Arabic IRQ special, 2200-2300 VOA En.
2300-2330 VOA En, 2330-2400 VOA English.
Wolfgang Büschel, wwdxc BC-DX June 25 via DX Listening Digest 5-107 (30/6-2005)
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