Russian jamming fails to block radio

Press, 6 September 1980, Page 9

Russian jamming fails to block radio

NZPA Moscow Soviet radio jammers, using loud garbled voices, grinding buzz-saw sounds, and distorted music, are having only mixed success in their third week efforts to block out Western broadcasts to the Soviet Union, according to Western monitors and Soviet listeners.

Despite an investment in men and equipment that Soviet sources believe has been extremely expensive, Russian-language broadcasts by the Voice of America, the British Broadcasting Corporation and West Germany’s Duetsche Welle are still slipping through to many Soviet citizens determined to hear them. - • . - The 8.8. C. has estimated that it costs $425,000 a day to run the jamming stations and it says that the Russians are spending more in a week than the 8.8. C. spends on its Russian service in a year. United States, British, and West German diplomats have protested to the Soviet Government, but Soviet authorities publicly deny any jamming is going on. The drowning-out of Western broadcasts began on August 20, during widespread worker strikes in Poland.

Many Western analysts assumed the interference was aimed at blocking news of the Polish unrest from Soviet listeners. The Voice of Amercia broadcasts to all parts of the Soviet Union on as many as 10 wavelengths simultaneously, posing a heavy task for jammers. The 8.8. C. and Deutsche Welle also use simultaneous transmission on different frequencies. Soviet citizens are finding programmes are often dudible on one or two wavelengths, even if others are useless. In addition, past experience shows that under bridges, in river valleys, and inside steel-beam buildings — where local - radio programmes are usually difficult to hear —- jamming transmitters are often ineffective while the foreign programme can still get through. City-concentrated jamming also has little effect on the countryside; where many Russians relax on week-ends.