A tale of two Koreas

The two Koreas are at it again. A clash of times as usual this season with both broadcasting English at 2100 UTC (2200 BST). KBS World from Seoul in the south is as usual putting out a powerhouse signal from the Skelton transmitter in Cumbria on 3955kHz.



From the north, Pyongyang (1990s QSL above) is also a very good signal at the moment, SIO 444. Last night (15th May) their French transmission was strong until sign off at 2100 UTC on 15245 and 13760 kHz.

Then the English broadcast came on. Classic shortwave – military music, serenades to “Generalissimo Kim Il Sung"- (he’s the one that died in 1994), and is a “hero forever”. A studio announcer then read extracts from websites in Italy, Germany and UK that mentioned North Korea. Next up was a defence of their nuclear arsenal. Then a very informative and pleasant item on bird migration on the islands off of North Korea. I really enjoyed it and drifted off to sleep happily.