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Communications

BBC Resurrects WWII-era Shortwave Broadcasts as Russia Blocks News of Ukraine Invasion (theverge.com) 105

The BBC is resorting to broadcasting news bulletins over shortwave radio in Russia after the country blocked access to BBC websites, The Guardian reports. The Verge: The BBC announced it was bringing back the WWII-era broadcasting technology in the region just hours before its sites were banned. News of the ban was also reported by Russian state news agency RIA. Shortwave radio uses frequencies that carry over long-distances and are accessible on portable sets. The BBC says its shortwave broadcasts will be available on frequencies of 15735 kHz from 6pm to 8pm and 5875 kHz from midnight to 2am, Ukraine time. News will be read in English, which the BBC says will be available in Kyiv as well as "parts of Russia." Shortwave radio has a long history of wartime broadcasts. The Guardian reports that its usage peaked during the Cold War, but that it was also used throughout WWII to broadcast propaganda. The BBC World Service ended its use of the technology in Europe in 2008 after 76 years.
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BBC Resurrects WWII-era Shortwave Broadcasts as Russia Blocks News of Ukraine Invasion

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  • Radio Free Europe (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 04, 2022 @09:06AM (#62325529)
    I grew up in a Soviet Block. I remember my grandfather, who was well-educated and understood English would listen to Radio Free Europe at night, when government shut down blockers/RF noise broadcasts used to suppress these broadcasts. This is how we first learned about Chernobyl and Berlin Wall. Life comes full circle, it is now back to this again. So sad.
    • Yep. Russian desinformation seems to be extremely extensive today.
      A shame for Russia.

      • The buildup for the invasion was just so stark, with the President daily announcing what Putin was doing and about to do, and Putin vehemently denying it, and then doing precisely that. Seldom do you get such a stark contrast between the two sides of an issue. Not imposing the sanctions until after Putin acted is somewhat controversial, but it sure did make it easy to see who's to blame here.
        • And so the West has long waged war. Preemptive strikes, whether in the form of bullets and bombs, or now in the virtual world of shutting down access to global banking networks, is something we do after the other side has already started the invasion. In part, it's the nature of democracies that they don't tend to like to wage wars. Sure, they'll do it, and sometimes they will attack preemptively, but dictators don't have a free press and meaningful legislative or judicial checks on their power. It's why US

          • by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Friday March 04, 2022 @01:39PM (#62326621)

            Neville Chamberlain did negotiate, he wasn't really "appeasing" and he had a signed agreement from Hitler. He's faulted for being naive, but that's in hindsight. There's not else that could have been done beyond a pre-emptive strike; but a pre-emptive strike in the same manner really is only justifiable in hindsight. We pre-emptively went into Iraq for WMDs that weren't there and created a horrible mess.

            There was also Russia going into Georgia before the Crimea part. And for the same reason, to "rescure" some breakaway regions (which may or may not have been fully pro-Russian). There was a signed ceasefire agreement, but Russia immediately broke it (Medvedev was pres then, but Putin still in effective control). So the groundwork was laid then; the Russian leadership was sure that it could invade and steal parts of other nations without any repercussions from the west except for sweaty hang wringing. So the, Crimea and quickly after parts of Donbass.

            Note, for those still laboring under the delusion that the Donbass region wants to be a part of Russia, or that Russian speakers want to be Russian. In the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine, including Donbass, Russian speaking Ukrainians are fighting against Russian soldiers, with acts of sabotage or by assisting Ukrainian regulars. The people most likely to have welcomed Russian soldier with open arms are opposed to them. The only "civil war" going on is with the separatists that hold only about 1/3 of Donbass, and who are only a self-proclaimed republic with no support of the people, and who only kept up the fight because they had help from regular Russian solders from the very first day.

            Remember also that Putin lied outrageously that there were no Russian soldiers in Ukraine. And then later he admitted that they were there and that he had lied. "Sorry I lied, you should see look on your face, so funny!" Which is why you cannot believe Putin about the Donbass or that the Russian troops there are only there on their own vacation time and not sent by him. And why no one believed him when he said soldiers were only doing excercises next to the Ukraine border, or that he's only trying to clean out nazis, or that Ukraine is really just a part of Russia. You probably should not even believe Putin when he says what he ate for lunch.

            Right now Russian troops are shelling civlian areas that are nowhere near military installations. These are clear war crimes. Which is redundant since any war is a crime to someone. But every day Putin looks more and more like Hitler.

            • by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Friday March 04, 2022 @02:12PM (#62326749) Journal

              Chamberlain knew full well that Hitler was bullshitting. Chamberlain's "appeasement" was actually a strategy to try to hold off going to war as long as possible as Britain frantically tried to rearm and France started preparing (as it turned out, inadequately) for war. Chamberlain gets a bad name, but Churchill, despite public criticism of the man in the lead up to war, in his history of the Second World War made it clear that Chamberlain had a nearly impossible task of trying to ready Britain for an inevitable conflict while trying to give Hitler every opportunity to back away from the brink. By the time of the Munich Agreement, I don't think there was anyone in the British Government who seriously thought that war could be averted, but Britain, being the relatively decent world citizen, had abided by the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, now had to get itself up to sufficient strength to be able to lend a hand to France when the attacks began, not to mention guaranteeing Britain's own safety. So dire was Britain's situation in 1938 that they were actually building fake airplanes to put on airfields to try to fool German spy planes that the RAF was stronger than it actually was.

              In other words, Chamberlain was under no illusions, and his "peace in our time" speech, much derided later, wasn't really meant for Western ears, but as an attempt to convince Hitler that Britain believed the Munich Agreement meant anything at all.

            • Bold move defending Chamberlain.

              A large defensive buildup would have checked Hitler's entire blitzkrieg strategy.
          • by clovis ( 4684 )

            WWI (one, not two) and this book is much closer parallel to what and why Russia is invading the Ukraine today, and is a scary parallel.
            "July 1914: Countdown to War" by Sean MCKeekin
            https://www.nytimes.com/2013/0... [nytimes.com]
            https://www.military-history.u... [military-history.us]

            Key takeway from July 1914:
            Another interesting fact that has gotten short shrift in the literature thus far is the sequence of events and timelines surrounding Russian mobilization. It is widely known that Russia began mobilization before any other power, what is n

      • Are there plans for the Voice of America to resume shortwave broadcasting to Russia? One of the most powerful things we can do is inform the Russian people of what is happening, to counteract the disinformation.
        • BBC is trustworthy; Voice of America is far from it and probably still has Trump people messing it up who'd be praising Putin in between empty criticism.

          • VOA is gone excelt for english news to Africa and south sudan. Loooong gone from shortwave in America.

        • by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Friday March 04, 2022 @02:17PM (#62326777)

          The Trump appointee to lead Voice of America did tremendous harm to it. The goal of the Trump administration at all levels as to prove that "government does not work", and this salting of the earth occured even at agencies normally seen favorably by conservatives. So try tried to undermine everything in government, and what they could not tear down they instead made inefficient, and what they could not control they would disparage and insult and spread propaganda against.

          So at Voice of America, and the higher up US Agency for Global Media (also parent of Radio Free Europe, etc), was being lead by a bozo, Michael Pack. Even Republicans did not want to nominate Pack to CEO, since he was a partner with Steve Bannon and thus unsuitable for a "non-partisan" media group when his background was with the fake-news industry. Pack did not trust any of the staff, he treated everyone as disloyal, and he wanted to "drain the swamp". Which meant removing any and all anti-Trump sentiment (loyalty to the person is more important to Trump than loyalty to the country), and he did a lot of firing. Including people who had been at Voice of America for USAGM for several decades under both Republican and Democratic presidents, even conservatives. Slash and burn. Using tax dollars he investigated many of the staffers he had suspended rather than fired to root out disloyalty, so add lots of paranoia to his flaws (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/former-head-of-voice-of-americas-parent-hired-two-law-firms-to-no-bid-contracts-price-tag-4-million/2021/01/25/87a35e7a-5d0c-11eb-a976-bad6431e03e2_story.html). Foreign staffers, necessary for foreign language broadcasts, did not have their visas renewed and thus subsequently fired-by-default.

          Now it's been recovering, as Pack resigned two hours after Biden was sworn in and several of the fired staffers and execs were re-instated as acting heads. But it's taken a severe beating.

          • It is pity they did not drain the swamp more thoroughly. I would point out that Voice of America's Bethany Relay Station was dismantled under the Obama Administration, as was the Space Shuttle program. Arguably, the Obama Administration oversaw the Science Purge, costing thousands of jobs removing anybody with a logical voice of dissent. This damaged the United States brain trust, an effect being felt today. Trump was a business man, he behaves like one. This does far less damage than our current Administ
      • by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Friday March 04, 2022 @01:13PM (#62326463)

        Story in BBC about how people being shelled by Russian troops are not being believed by their own parents who live in Russia. They stubbornly claim that it must be Ukrainians instead who are shelling them and that Russians only are shelling military targets, and the children can't get them to change their minds. So there's a total control of the media in Russia and it is controlling the thoughts of the people. This is outright Orwellian. This is why a free press is necessary for a democracy.

  • on how to listen to shortwave.
    • by teg ( 97890 )

      on how to listen to shortwave.

      But can Russians watch Youtube? There's quite a lot of information on Youtube, and the Russian government would certainly want to prevent users from seeing anything other than their "we're just acting in self defense" fairy tale for their invasion of another country.

      Putin's attack on Ukraine seems to follow the playbook of the German dictator's attack on Sudetenland [wikipedia.org] - a part of Czechoslovakia with some inhabitants of German descent, and which resulted in Hitler invading the rest as well.

      Another parallel is

  • As of this posting I can hear the beeb on a portable radio from Quartzsite Arizona

  • People in Russia deserve to know the truth instead of state sponsored brainwashing crap like N. Korea.
  • Do they speak English of the haw-haw, dammit-get-out-of-my-way-variety ?
  • by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) on Friday March 04, 2022 @10:42AM (#62325887) Homepage Journal

    Itâ(TM)s at times like this, that a selected shortwave frequency range should be reserved for analogue use and have phones include support for it. We shouldnâ(TM)t need it, but when shit hits the fan, weâ(TM)ll be happy for the legacy support.

    • I wonder how many people have a half decent radio, know where it is, or how to use it? If their phone doesn't do it for them, guess they'll have to find a nerd or older person?

      • Most radios won't help - Shortwave operates on different frequencies which your desk radio (and probably phone) can't pick up. Still, there's enough people with shortwave radios (truckers, pilots, HAM radio enthusiasts, etc.) that it usually doesn't take long for people to pull together and establish communications after a natural disaster.

        Shortwave is also (usually?) AM modulated, while virtually all "value added" radios built into modern electronics like phones are strictly FM compatible, since they're r

        • I used to have a JVC boom box that picked up a couple of shortwave bands on a regular single rabbit ear. I got some international broadcasts on occasion.

        • Narrowband FM bandwidth is 2X the maximum frequency of the audio, same as conventional AM (5 kHz audio requires a minimum bandwidth of 10 kHz for AM and narrowband FM.) Single sideband (SSB) is half that. Wideband FM has a wider bandwidth than the unmodulated audio, and that allows improved signal-to-noise ratio for signals above a threshold. This effect has been known for about 90 years.

          While construction of a simple AM receiver is easy, it won't be good. For good sensitivity and selectivity, additional am

  • The internet is great but we were way too quick to get rid of reliable technologies like shortwave that don't require working local infrastructure and thus still work when wars/natural disasters/etc take down the power/cellular/etc.

    • Fortunately we haven't gotten rid of them yet, even if they're a lot less popular than they used to be (at least as a percentage of the population - the absolute numbers might be up, I don't know).

      Plenty of groups are *trying* to end it though, that "magic" long-range spectrum is a juicy plum for modern tech. Hopefully this will be a reminder that it's valuable for far more than increasing profit margins and helping save poor people from natural disasters. It's also a valuable weapon for undermining author

    • Shortwave is going strong, and even has shortwave to IP -so you can (slowly) run an internet connection over shortwave ...

  • Shortwave radio was the cat's meow for me in Iran from 1978 until I left in 1984. Memorized the times and frequencies for the Persian programs on London, Koln, Moscow, and VOA to keep track of things our own government wouldn't tell us pertaining to the revolution and then the war with Iraq. I love it that something like this is still alive and well.
  • This WP plugin relays BBC news on any domain; making it harder to block. Only appears for Russian and Belarusian visitors. You can find it on GitHub at https://github.com/goddessmokosh/stop-war-in-ukraine

  • by alanw ( 1822 ) <alan@wylie.me.uk> on Friday March 04, 2022 @02:53PM (#62326937) Homepage

    The BBC is also making its international news website available via the Tor network, in a bid to thwart censorship attempts.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/tec... [bbc.co.uk]

    BBC News in Ukrainian: https://www.bbcweb3hytmzhn5d53... [www.bbcweb...crad.onion]
    BBC News in Russian: https://www.bbcweb3hytmzhn5d53... [www.bbcweb...crad.onion]
    BBC News internationally: https://www.bbcweb3hytmzhn5d53... [www.bbcweb...crad.onion]

    Instead of visiting bbc.co.uk/news or bbc.com/news, users of the Tor browser can visit the new site here:
    https://www.bbcnewsd73hkzno2in... [www.bbcnew...5uqd.onion]

  • You don't need an internet service provider, or fibre optic cables. You can get digital info and images across narrowband RF channels. It is slow, but it works. The worst tyranny imaginable can't forbid Maxwell's equations. What are they going to do, surround Russia with a steel shell? The iron curtain did not keep out radio waves.

  • Shortwave is the way to go .. can't cut the cable or pull the plug on those. Nothing like the glow and warmth of a SW tube reciever :) 51 years of the hobby for me .. never gets old. Happy DXing :) Go BBC !

  • It's a neat idea, but I'm listening on this frequency after the time of the BBC broadcast and hear Russian being spoken so presumably they are countering with their own broadcast?
  • I didn't realise that playing Bethesda's Fallout series might actually prove useful. Damn

Keep up the good work! But please don't ask me to help.

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