{"id":10698,"date":"2022-03-29T06:59:11","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T10:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/?p=10698"},"modified":"2023-03-19T08:14:42","modified_gmt":"2023-03-19T12:14:42","slug":"an-open-letter-to-my-russian-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2022\/03\/an-open-letter-to-my-russian-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"An open letter to my Russian friends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’ve made no secret here over the years, I have many friends and acquaintances in various parts of Russia. It is a fascinating culture with great art, literature, and music. I am watching with growing concern, the level of Russian demonization from seemingly every quarter being aimed at Russian people and businesses here. It seems that a great number of people have lost perspective. It also shows the power of propaganda. Theirs and ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be sure, watching the situation unfold in Ukraine on social media is disconcerting. No one in their right mind can look at those images and say “Oh, that is normal.” It is greatly disturbing. It is also war. All wars are like this and have been like this since the beginning of time. The images of dead civilians, bombed-out cities, mass graves, and so on are broadcast to the world on social media in almost real-time. That is the difference this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This situation in Ukraine is complicated. It is a war of gas and ambition. There are many questions, good questions which can be asked; Why is NATO a concern? Why does Putin feel threatened by the EU? What is the Azov regiment? What did the natural gas fields discovered in 2010 have to do with the 2014 overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych<\/a>? How much corruption is there with the Zelenskyy government? How did the US know that there was to be an invasion? What, if any, does the Bo Biden\/Berisma thing have to do with this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mentioned in a previous post<\/a> about Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty shortwave broadcasts during the cold war. I am heartened to see that there is a private effort to use the facilities of WRMI <\/a>to broadcast information to that area of the world. The VOA has stated that they are not making plans to make broadcasts via shortwave because few people in that part of the world have shortwave receivers. I know firsthand, that is not true. There are many shortwave sets still in existence<\/a> and there are people who remember how to hook them up. As Russia becomes more isolated from the world, those shortwave sets are going to get dusted off and put into service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Novo-Rossiya<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Currently, WRMI is transmitting Russian language broadcasts on 7730 KHz from 0200-0500 UTC and 9370 KHz from 1900-2000 UTC. They have funding<\/a> to buy broadcast time into the summer months. They are also leasing time on 1395 KHz medium wave, which I think is the public broadcaster in Armenia<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Radio International Broadcasting Center, 1395 KHz 500 KW<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On the downside, shortwave transmission facilities are expensive to build and run. Unlike internet distribution, there is no way to measure audience engagement or gather audience data. On the upside, it is very difficult to effectively jam HF signals<\/a> across large areas. It is also very expensive and it would take a fair amount of time to rebuild the old soviet jamming networks. In the meantime, people will be looking for good sources of information about a number of topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The one thing that I do know, Putin is the aggressor and he cannot be allowed to win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve made no secret here over the years, I have many friends and acquaintances in various parts of Russia. It is a fascinating culture with great art, literature, and music. I am watching with growing concern, the level of Russian demonization from seemingly every quarter being aimed at Russian people and businesses here. It seems … Continue reading An open letter to my Russian friends<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[231,50],"class_list":["post-10698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-hf","tag-shortwave"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10698"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11044,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10698\/revisions\/11044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}