Well, isn’t this something. While the Wired reporter is all agog about an iPod being used in a battle zone, I like the spectral appropriation motif better:
Radio geeks would be familiar with the tools: a 100 Watt Harris AM/FM “radio in a box” transmitter coupled with a Marantz rack-mountable portable CD/cassette player. The PsyOps team loaded up a laptop with contemporary Iraqi and Arabic pop music and started broadcasting on a local frequency, 93.9 FM.
The transmitter is designed for use by emergency responders. It has a small range — [Maj. Byron] Sarchet estimated it had a reach of only a few kilometers — but in a densely populated area like Sadr City, it can reach a large audience. Continue reading “U.S. Military Resorts to Radio Piracy to Win Hearts and Minds”
Tag: psyops
Target (market): Afghanistan
“Attention Taliban! You are condemned. Did you know that? The instant the terrorists you support took over our planes, you sentenced yourselves to death…”
Such begins another broadcast day on “Information Radio,” the U.S. military’s psychological operations arm of the so-called “war on terrorism” in Afghanistan.
Now that the military campaign is in full seek-and-destroy mode, a specially-equipped plane from the Pennsylvania Air National Guard is making daily flights over Afghanistan, broadcasting music and messages for 10 hours a day on at least two AM frequencies (864 and 1107 kHz). A shortwave station, probably located in the neighboring former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan, also relays the programming on 8700 kHz. Continue reading “Target (market): Afghanistan”