Radio Free Iraq Begins Transmissions
By Nick Grace
October 29, 1998
with Martin Schoech, CRW Europe Bureau
Set your radios to 11915 kHz at 1600 UTC on Friday, October 30, when Radio Free Iraq will launch its programs. The surrogate broadcasting effort, spearheaded by U.S. Congress, is beginning and CRW has obtained an exclusive copy of the station's schedule.
UTC Time
Freq. Transmitter Power Antenna
1600-1700
6130 K07 250 K120L
9540 WOF6250 WB9
9850 L4100 L080L
11915 WOF1300 WC11
0300-04005965 K07 250 K120L
7110 K03 250 KE7L
7275 K09 250 K080L
9740 L4100 L120L
(Effective: Oct 30 1998 - Mar 27 1998)
A source within Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) tells CRW that Radio Free Iraq (RFI) "is starting out modestly." Programs will last one hour and will be broadcast to Iraq twice, at 1600 UTC and repeated at 0300 UTC.She also indicates that broadcasts will eventually increase to six hours a day with more Arabic programs and the addition of a Kurdish-language service.
Chris Noonan Sturm, the Internet Project Director for RFE/RL, is organizing the Internet efforts for RFI and said today "We expect to bring... (the webpage) live either this evening (6 p.m. ET, 2300 UTC) or tomorrow when the broadcasts begin."
The URL for Radio Free Iraq will be:
http://www.rferl.org/bd/iq/
Special QSL verifications are being prepared for the first day of broadcasting, according to RFE/RL Director of Communications Paul Goble, and listeners may write to:
Radio Free Iraq
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
1201 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C., 20036
USA
Radio Free Iraq's schedule is to be officially released with the activation of the station's homepage, raising questions about how its managers plan to attract listeners in Iraq. The release of the schedule at such a late hour, according to CRW sources, is to undermine potential jamming efforts on behalf of Saddam Hussein's regime. "RFI is being publicized through other means in Iraq," they tell CRW.
RFE/RL's Farsi-language service to Iran will also begin on October 30, however, CRW was unable to obtain a copy of the schedule for security reasons. "Their jamming mechanism is much more difficult to break," the source said. Interested listeners can access RFE/RL's website for information when it is publicly available.
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