Furusato No Kaze 9705 kHz AM 1337 UTC 14 JAN 2022

[Erik Mattson]

Furusato No Kaze (Wind of Hometown)

OM, brief mx, then YL in Japanese. Pgmg for Japanese abductees in N.Korea.

SIO:333/322

https://shortwavearchive.com/archive/furusato-no-kaze-september-17-2015

Heavy.

Note: Wasn't sure whether to put this under Clandestine or not.



 

[East Troy Don]

Solid signal this morning on 9705 khz @ 13:35 utc in Japanese with YM/YL cohosts.

Music @ 13:33:
"KOKORO NO TABI".  Tulip
13:46.  "GHMORNI". Myriam Fares

SINPO: 44344.  FRG7700 /Alpha Delta Sloper
TX: Paochung, Taiwan
TARGET: North Korea

[Pigmeat]

Erik, those kidnappings have been going on since the late 1950's. A handful make it back to Japan in diplomatic swaps, but many of the kidnapping victims choose to stay in North Korea. After decades of being there they have families and are enculturated in North Korean society. Back in the old days we called it being "brainwashed".

BTW, nice catch from Maryland.

[Kenotic]

Heard this one a few times recently, faintly, at 1330 on 9455 -- with a similar show right before it on the same frequency. Quite the story about the reasons for the broadcasts.

[MDK2]

Heard this one a few times recently, faintly, at 1330 on 9455 -- with a similar show right before it on the same frequency. Quite the story about the reasons for the broadcasts.

I'm copying it right now (Sunday 10/9, 1342 UTC) decent SIO 333 signal. I had noticed the frequency you cited and thought surely that's incorrect, WRMI is on that frequency 24/7, but that transmitter must still be down. Thanks for mentioning it.

[Kenotic]

Even before the hurricane WRMI was off by then, and while it's a bit weak it was still coming in about 232 on that frequency for me most days.

[BoomboxDX]

I've heard this station at least twice.

How and/or why were the Japanese citizens abducted? That is not clear to me.

And if there are no actual radios in North Korea, except a few smuggled in, or the standard North Korean single-frequency ones, how does the Japanese government know if any of the abductees are hearing the broadcasts?

[Pigmeat]

Revenge, most likely. The Koreans were treated like animals when the Japanese set up their empire in Korea and Manchuria before and during WWII. Korean women were taken as "comfort women" by the Japanese Military and shipped to wherever the Imperial Army went. The Japanese conducted human experiments on the people of Korea and Manchuria, including releasing diseases to see how they reacted in large populations. They made the Nazi's look like pikers.

How? Small boats and submarines. The North Koreans have small, but very good subs.

These historical issues are still big between the two Korea's and Japan, not to mention China and Japan.

 

[Kenotic]

I've heard this station at least twice.

How and/or why were the Japanese citizens abducted? That is not clear to me.

And if there are no actual radios in North Korea, except a few smuggled in, or the standard North Korean single-frequency ones, how does the Japanese government know if any of the abductees are hearing the broadcasts?

North Korean abductions were notorious from Japan and the south -- they even made a ripoff of Godzilla with abducted South Koreans. Wiki is actually helpful on this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_abductions_of_Japanese_citizens

Also, for fun watch the first episodes of "Crash Landing on You" on Netflix. It's obviously fiction and is a light/silly drama, but some of the actors said the depiction of North Korean villages was very accurate: Many people had TVs to receive South Korean shows and had at least one radio hidden.

[Pigmeat]

Smuggling radios in is one of the things that gets Westerners visiting the North locked up. A lot of North Koreans build their own or smuggle them in from China and Russia where North Koreans are shipped as part of labor gangs.

North Koreans sneak across the border to escape to the rural Manchuria region of China, which would seem to be the Third World to us, is a vast improvement over eating grass in the govt. imposed famine in North Korea.

I can't remember what writer said, "Never trust a fat man in a skinny country.", but Kim personifies it in North Korea.