Голос Кореи: Международное радиовещание КНДР

the North Korean broadcasting service
International broadcasting service of North Korea

Voice of Korea (hangul=조선의 소리) is the international broadcasting service of North Korea. It broadcasts primarily information in Chinese, Spanish, German, English, French, Russian, Japanese and Arabic. Until 2002 it was known as Radio Pyongyang. The interval signal is identical to that of Korean Central Television.

The origins of Voice of Korea can be traced to 1936 and the radio station JBBK. Operated by the occupying Japanese forces, JBBK broadcast a first and second program as part of Japan's radio network that covered the Korean Peninsula from Seoul. The station was founded in October 1945 as Radio Pyongyang, and officially inaugurated programming on the 14th, with a live broadcast of the victory speech of Kim Il Sung when he returned to Pyongyang at the end of World War II. The first foreign broadcast was in Chinese on 16 March 1947. Japanese language broadcasts began in 1950, followed by English (1951), French and Russian (1963), Spanish (1965), Arabic (1970), and German (1983). By 1960, Radio Pyongyang broadcast 159 hours of programming every week. In 1970, weekly broadcasting hours totaled 330 hours and by 1980, 597 hours. In 1990 weekly broadcasting time fell to 534 hours per week, 529 in 1994, and 364 in 1996. In 2002, the station was renamed Voice of Korea. If there are any items about Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il or Kim Jong un, these are the top bulletins. On the station's website, Kim Jong Un's full name is used whenever he is mentioned in a story, and his name (as well as those of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Un) appear in font larger than the rest of the story's text. The news items are typically one day behind the news of the domestic service Korean Central Broadcasting Station. The news is followed by music and an excerpt from Kim Il Sung's memoirs With the Century. After the memoirs, there is more music and feature stories, sometimes followed by an editorial. The 57 minute broadcast concludes with frequency information and a sign off message. While it is unknown whether this was an intentional effort to interfere with Poacher's propagation or an accident, it is not unknown for Voice of Korea to unintentionally jam its own signal by transmitting programmes in different languages simultaneously on the same frequency.

Voice of Korea broadcasts on HF or shortwave radio frequencies, A transmitter site in Kanggye (also five 200 kW) is used as well. A site in Pyongyang (10 transmitters of 200 kW) is also in use. On occasion, Voice of Korea has missed its regular service. The interruptions have not been explained by Voice of Korea, but they are thought to be due to engineering works at the transmitter sites, faulty equipment or because of power outages. In 2012 they occurred when the country was facing one of its worst electricity shortages in years. The off air periods also affect North Korea's own jamming signals designed to prevent reception of South Korean stations such as Echo of Hope, Voice of the People, and KBS Hanminjok Radio. Voice of Korea broadcasts on the ChinaSat 12 satellite along with Korean Central Broadcasting Station (KCBS) and Korean Central Television. Currently (as of 11 March 2021) it seems, that several foreign language programmes are identical to each other, as exactly the same music is played at the same time, only the spoken and translated parts of the programme have been amended to match the respective program language. This could be monitored by switching from the German evening program on 6170 kHz from 19:00 UTC to the Spanish program on 7570 kHz at 19:00 UTC and back. It also seems, that the shortwave transmitter, which is used for the German language service, has a rather bad modulation. The transmitter for the Spanish programme however seems in better shape.

This is a list of broadcasts of Voice of Korea by language as of August 2019. All times are in UTC.