North Korea launched a new radio broadcast targeted at South Korea on Saturday morning. The two-hour long “Echo of Unification” broadcast is expected to be broadcast three times a day and will go out over some transmitters that usually carry state radio programs.

Details of the broadcast were first made public on the Uriminzokkiri website, a China-based site with official ties to North Korea.

As can be seen from the graphic (below), the program broadcasts in the morning from 7am to 9am, in the afternoon from 1pm to 3pm, and in the evening from 9pm to 11pm.

The frequencies in use are shortwave 3,970kHz and 6,250kHz, mediumwave 684kHz and 1,080kHz and FM 97.8MHz.

That’s an interesting selection, because it spans three North Korean radio networks.

3,970 kHz (Wonsan) Korean Central Broadcasting Station
6,250 kHz (Pyongyang) Pyongyang Broadcasting Station
684 kHz (Samgo) Pyongyang Broadcasting Station
1,080 kHz (Haeju) Korean Central Broadcasting Station
97.8MHz (Haeju) Pyongyang FM Broadcasting

Korean Central Broadcasting Station is the main domestic radio network, Pyongyang Broadcasting Station broadcasts in Korean to surrounding countries (including South Korea), and Pyongyang FM Broadcasting Station is the domestic FM network.

At least, this is the plan. We’ll wait to hear from monitoring reports if all the channels come on the air.

What’s certain is that the two mediumwave frequencies give the broadcast a strong signal that’s easily tunable across much of South Korea (except near Seoul, where they are jammed), Japan and northeast China.

I hope to be able to make some recordings of the program soon.