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Radio jamming in China is a form of censorship in the People's Republic of China that involves deliberate attempts by state or Communist Party organs to interfere with radio broadcasts. In most instances, radio jamming targets foreign broadcasters, including Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia, the BBC World Service, Sound of Hope (SOH) and stations based in Taiwan.
Radio jamming is achieved by transmitting radio signals on the same frequency as the intended target. The government of the People's Republic of China disrupts shortwave radio communications through this method, typically by broadcasting music, drumming, or other noise. [1] On shortwave, the jamming sound is usually composed of Chinese folk music, specifically a composition known as The Firedrake, running one hour in duration. The one hour audio clip is sourced from the ChinaSat 6B satellite (launched in 2007) and transmitted by relay stations on the same frequencies used by target stations. High quality recordings of The Firedrake also exist on the internet. [2] On some occasions, China National Radio broadcasts are also used to jam target signals. [3]
The French defense electronics company Thales Group was accused of aiding Chinese censorship efforts by selling shortwave broadcasting equipment to Chinese authorities in 2008. The firm denied this, saying that the sale of equipment was for civil purposes. [4]
Since broadcasting began in 1996, Chinese authorities have consistently jammed Radio Free Asia broadcasts. [5] In 2002, the Broadcasting Board of Governors reported that "virtually all of VOA's and RFA's shortwave radio transmissions directed to China [...] are jammed," including their Mandarin, Cantonese, Tibetan, and Uyghur language services. [6]
In 2008, the Oslo-based Voice of Tibet reported that jamming of its radio communications intensified during the 2008 Tibetan unrest, as authorities increased the number of disrupted signals it employed to block outside transmissions. [1]
Other targets for jamming include the BBC World Service, Radio Taiwan International, and the Falun Gong-affiliated Sound of Hope radio network. [7]
In 2011, some international radio broadcasters, including both the BBC and VOA, announced plans to scale down or close their Mandarin shortwave services for China due to spending cuts and frustrations caused by jamming efforts. [8] [9] The BBC and VOA instead chose to invest more heavily in Internet radio; both received financial support from the U.S. Department of State to fund and research Internet censorship-circumvention software, such as Freegate and Ultrasurf, to enable their Chinese audience to access their programs online. [10] [11]
Broadcasters have also sought to educate their audiences on the use of anti-jamming technology. [12]
The BBC World Service is an international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcasts radio news, speech and discussions in more than 40 languages to many parts of the world on analogue and digital shortwave platforms, internet streaming, podcasting, satellite, DAB, FM, LW and MW relays. In 2024, the World Service reached an average of 450 million people a week. In November 2016, the BBC announced that it would start broadcasting in additional languages including Amharic and Igbo, in its biggest expansion since the 1940s.
Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz ; above the medium frequency band (MF), to the bottom of the VHF band.
Voice of America is an international broadcasting state media network funded by the federal government of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest of the U.S. international broadcasters. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content in 48 languages, which it distributes to affiliate stations around the world. Its targeted and primary audience is non-American outside of the US borders. As of November 2022, its reporting reached 326 million adults per week across all platforms. It is financed by the U.S. Agency for Global Media after approval by Congress.
International broadcasting consists of radio and television transmissions that purposefully cross international boundaries, often with then intent of allowing expatriates to remain in touch with their countries of origin as well as educate, inform, and influence residents of foreign countries. Content can range from overt propaganda and counterpropaganda to cultural content to news reports that reflect the point of view and concerns of the originating country or that seek to provide alternative information to that otherwise available as well as promote tourism and trade. In the first half of the twentieth century, international broadcasting was used by colonial empires as a means of connecting colonies with the metropole. When operated by governments or entities close to a government, international broadcasting can be a form of soft power. Less frequently, international broadcasting has been undertaken for commercial purposes by private broadcasters.
A numbers station is a shortwave radio station characterized by broadcasts of formatted numbers, which are believed to be addressed to intelligence officers operating in foreign countries. Most identified stations use speech synthesis to vocalize numbers, although digital modes such as phase-shift keying and frequency-shift keying, as well as Morse code transmissions, are not uncommon. Most stations have set time schedules, or schedule patterns; however, some appear to have no discernible pattern and broadcast at random times. Stations may have set frequencies in the high-frequency band.
Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio station, while in satellite radio the radio waves are broadcast by a satellite in Earth orbit. To receive the content the listener must have a broadcast radio receiver (radio). Stations are often affiliated with a radio network that provides content in a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast, or both. The encoding of a radio broadcast depends on whether it uses an analog or digital signal. Analog radio broadcasts use one of two types of radio wave modulation: amplitude modulation for AM radio, or frequency modulation for FM radio. Newer, digital radio stations transmit in several different digital audio standards, such as DAB, HD radio, or DRM.
Radio Canada International (RCI) is the international broadcasting service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Prior to 1970, RCI was known as the CBC International Service. The broadcasting service was also previously referred to as the Voice of Canada, broadcasting on shortwave from powerful transmitters in Sackville, New Brunswick. "In its heyday", said Radio World magazine, "Radio Canada International was one of the world's most listened-to international shortwave broadcasters". However, as the result of an 80 percent budget cut, shortwave services were terminated in June 2012, and RCI became accessible exclusively via the Internet. It also reduced its services to five languages and ended production of its own news service.
Radio Free Asia (RFA) is a news service that broadcasts radio programs and publishes online news, information, and commentary for its audiences in Asia. The service, which provides editorially independent reporting, has the stated mission of providing accurate and uncensored reporting to countries in Asia that have poor media environments and limited protections for speech and press freedom. RFA is American government-funded, operates as a non-profit corporation, headquartered in Washington, D.C, with news bureaus and journalists in Asia, Europe, and Australia.
Shortwave listening, or SWLing, is the hobby of listening to shortwave radio broadcasts located on frequencies between 1700 kHz and 30 MHz (30 000 kHz). Listeners range from casual users seeking international news and entertainment programming, to hobbyists immersed in the technical aspects of long-distance radio reception and sending and collecting official confirmations that document their reception of remote broadcasts (DXing). In some developing countries, shortwave listening enables remote communities to obtain regional programming traditionally provided by local medium wave AM broadcasters. In 2002, the number of households that were capable of shortwave listening was estimated to be in the hundreds of millions.
The Voice of America Bethany Relay Station. Located in Butler County, Ohio, about 25 miles north of Cincinnati, the facility was constructed by the U.S. government during World War II, to broadcast news and information to Europe and South America beginning in 1943. Once one of the world’s most powerful radio shortwave stations, it was decommissioned in 1994 and now operates as a non-profit museum.
Radio jamming is the deliberate blocking of or interference with wireless communications. In some cases, jammers work by the transmission of radio signals that disrupt telecommunications by decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio.
ALLISS is a somewhat rotatable antenna system for high power shortwave radio broadcasting in the 6 MHz to 26 MHz range. An ALLISS module is a self-contained shortwave relay station that is used for international broadcasting.
All-Union Radio was the radio broadcasting organisation for the USSR under Gosteleradio, operated from 1924 until the dissolution of the USSR. The organization was based in Moscow.
Radio Taiwan International is the English name and call sign of the Central Broadcasting System (CBS), national broadcaster and international radio service of Taiwan. It is a government-owned station that broadcasts in 14 languages around the world via the internet, shortwave and podcasts. It also has Facebook fan pages in five additional languages.
The Woofferton transmitting station is owned and operated by Encompass Digital Media, as one of the BBC's assets which were handed over as part of the privatization of World Service distribution and transmission in 1997. It is the last remaining UK shortwave broadcasting site, located at Woofferton, south of Ludlow, Shropshire, England. The large site spreads across into neighbouring Herefordshire.
Voice of Korea 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.
Radio jamming on the Korean Peninsula makes the border region one of the world's busiest places for radio signals. Medium wave jamming is dominant in the area including Seoul and the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). South Korea jams all radio and television broadcasts from North Korea, and until 2013 jammed all foreign broadcasts, which was ended during the Park Geun-hye administration.
Voice of Tibet is a radio station based in Norway transmitting shortwave radio programmes in the Tibetan language as well as Mandarin Chinese. The station began broadcasting on 14 May 1996 and was founded by three Norwegian NGOs: Norwegian Human Rights House, The Norwegian Tibet Committee and Worldview Rights. Its broadcasts target Tibet and China as well as India, Bhutan and Nepal. It receives funds from the United States National Endowment for Democracy.
China Tibet Broadcasting is a broadcast network headquartered in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Its radio programmes were founded in 1959. Its English language audio broadcast is called Holy Tibet, broadcasts at 07:00 and 16:00 UTC every day.
