Ha. And all this time I thought the South Koreans where slightly more sensible...
South Korea to upgrade national stereo defence system for US$16m
South Korea has issued a tender for a new national defence stereo system. The democratic enclave in North-East Asia has long operated huge banks of speakers on its side of the demilitarised zone it shares with North Korea. South Korea uses the speakers to broadcast propaganda and K-Pop into the North, with troops along the …
COMMENTS
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Friday 15th April 2016 18:57 GMT Charles 9
Hey, it worked on Manuel Noriega (look up Operation Nifty).
I wonder if the Sorks are going to be interested in more focused audio projection tech as well (you know, those devices that can produce focused sound some distance away without necessarily drowning out everything else in the neighborhood).
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Friday 15th April 2016 22:41 GMT Crazy Operations Guy
Only spending $16m on military hardware? I'd say that that's pretty sensible. The US military probably spent more than that on a single 1-meter XLR cable for their audio system (They do have to ensure that it have outstanding performance when playing patriotic tunes and painted olive green)...
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Thursday 19th January 2017 22:37 GMT Voland's right hand
Re: Gangnam style
Korea would be large video projectors to display K-pop.
You sure you spelled it correctly? Should have been K-porn.
By the way, as most dictators of "Kommunist" (quotes really needed) lineage the Kim dynasty regime is more prudish than your typical 16th century convent.
Comes with the territory - you could pretty much plot the prudishness level in the USSR and ex-Warsaw pact 30+ years ago. The more kommienuts - the more prudish.
If the goal is to outrage them, showing some "action", especially the one they consider "perverted" is a much better idea than broadcasting Pop. It may end up in an invasion though...
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Friday 15th April 2016 05:01 GMT mr. deadlift
upvote for thee and ...
Death to the false emperor / Kim dynasty!
Also interesting to note Samsung have a auto kill bot on the south side, so yeah. Which apparently will not shoot unless you have your hands above your head, how do you know you are being targeted 4kms away?? a bloody 16m PA system should do it...
I do not think the south have their heads clearly screwed on either.
Ref:
http://www.gizmag.com/korea-dodamm-super-aegis-autonomos-robot-gun-turret/17198/
or maybe it was this one but it's human op'd either way it's fkn crazy town.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_SGR-A1
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Friday 15th April 2016 04:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
A better idea to annoy the Norks
Extensive research, carried out on crowded commuter trains plagued by tinny nose emanating from leaky earbuds, strongly suggests that the optimum strategy for annoying the neighbours would not be a small number of high-powered speaker arrays, but rather a swarm of a million micro-drones equipped with milliwatt-class transducers featuring high-pass filters set at 5kHz. Effects on the subject include irritation, loss of concentration, and feelings of helplessness. Oh, and homicidal rage - probably unfortunately, in the case of North Korea.
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Saturday 16th April 2016 11:34 GMT Charles 9
Re: What is the point of this?
Perhaps, unless they decide to defect en masse, but if they're just driven plumb loco, we'll never hear the story as the loony will be quietly shipped off and replaced with another helpless pawn. And as they probably primarily communicate by radio, it would be impractical to send deaf men over there. So it's still a way to keep Pyongyang irritated and busy.
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Monday 18th April 2016 11:58 GMT Bob H
Re: What is the point of this?
2.6% of defectors were apparently in military service at the time of their departure from the North.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_defectors#South_Korea
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-northkorea-defector-idUSKBN0OV04W20150615
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/06/world/asia/north-korea-defector/
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Friday 15th April 2016 07:53 GMT Elmer Phud
Replacement
Can I suggest one of the local pizza deliverers?
Always uses a car, always has the original (drappy) audio turned up to ultimate ditsortion to try and get some bass out of it.
You can almost track the entire journey of the car just by listening for the boot, bonnet and window rattles.
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Friday 15th April 2016 19:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Royalties
But then again, patriotism and national pride has its place, especially in the East where respecting one's family and government is held in particularly high regard. I would think in this case either the artists and/or studios were compensated for their songs being tapped or the songs were especially contracted by them for the purpose. Either way, it could be an actual case of fair due.
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Friday 15th April 2016 15:31 GMT toughluck
Too bad the range is so limited
One thing that has apparently caused East Germany to join the Federation* immediately was television, commercials in particular. When you saw how happy you could be in a new Mercedes, while looking out the window and seeing one or two Trabants or the occasional Wartburg, it has served as a constant reminder.
There's the obvious caveat that East Germans had television sets (Norks don't have them except for the privileged few) and communist materialist ideology (whereas North Korea, with its Juche and deification of state leaders, makes their citizens wary of all possessions).
*) Well, other than the vastly better economy, but they needed to be aware of it as well. Apparently at least one Nork was shocked on her first visit to a supermarket and thought it was a ruse.
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Friday 15th April 2016 19:32 GMT Frumious Bandersnatch
missing a trick
I assume that propaganda on both sides is a bit repetitive in the literal sense of being on a continuous loop. If you get a good clean recording, invert the phase and then pump that out on your own system, you can get some degree of noise cancellation in selected spots. Of course, when broadcast out over a wide area, some spots will get destructive interference (cancelling out what you don't want heard) while others will have constructive interference (making it louder).
The other interesting thing about this is that one appropriate response to the use of this tech (assuming both sides rush to use it) would be simply to turn off your own speakers. Then you save electricity and the other guy ends up broadcasting both signals with perfect fidelity.
Might not be a perfect idea, but at least some "deaf spots" could help shield your guys against the opposing propaganda.
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Saturday 16th April 2016 11:40 GMT Charles 9
Re: missing a trick
South Korea is a pretty small country (about the size of Illinois) yet they have a very strong emphasis on nuclear power generation. Given this is a military operation, I don't think energy use is at the top of the priority list. As for signal cancellation, they can mitigate this with speaker placement to make the sound difficult to counter-phase as well as applying some constantly-shifting effect on the raw recording to keep it coming out slightly different. Not only will this reduce the ability to record and rephase the sound, but subtle tonal variations have been known to play havoc with people's heads.
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Tuesday 26th April 2016 22:15 GMT William Higinbotham
DMZ-IN Movie Theater
Wouldn't it be better to put up large outdoor movie screens and play the latest movies and some old ones like Dr Strange Love (subtitled in Korean of course). The politicians and brass up north would not know how to keep their troops eyes and ears focused while watching the DMZ. Tell them not to look in that direction and wear ear plugs! What a hoot it would be.