| Type | Broadcastradio |
|---|---|
| Country | |
| History | |
| Launch date | 1924 |
| Closed | 1991 |
| Coverage | |
| Availability | National International |
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All-Union Radio (Russian:Всесоюзное радио,romanized: Vsesoyuznoye radio) was theradio broadcasting organisation for theUSSR underGosteleradio, operated from 1924 until thedissolution of the USSR. The organization was based inMoscow.
Following theOctober Revolution control over radio resources was given to thePeople's Commissariat for Posts and Telegraphs. Then, in 1924 it was transferred to a joint-stock company whose members were theRussian Telegraph Agency, a major electric factory, and the PCPT,10 but in 1928 was returned to the People's Commissariat for Posts and Telegraphs. The first All-Union Radio station, was opened uponLenin's initiative (for a "paperless newspaper" as the best means of public information) in November 1924. On November 23, 1924 the first regular broadcast was produced in Moscow on theComintern radio station, using theShukhov radio tower. In 1925, the Radio Commission of the Central Committee of the RCP(B) was organized for overall supervision of radio broadcasting.
On 30 October 1930, fromTiraspol,MASSR, started broadcasting in theRomanian language a Soviet station of 4kW whose main purpose was the anti-Romanian propaganda toBessarabia betweenPrut andDniester.[1] In the context in which a new radio mast, M. Gorky, built in 1936 in Tiraspol, allowed a greater coverage of the territory ofMoldova, theRomanian state broadcaster started in 1937 to buildRadio Basarabia, to counterSoviet propaganda.[2]
When theCold War started, Americans launched the stationRadio Free Europe while Western broadcasts were launched in theEastern bloc.
The first system for meter-wave radio relay links, "Crab," was created in the experimental workshops of the Research Institute of Radio Engineering in 1953-1954 and was used on the communication line across theCaspian Sea betweenKrasnovodsk andBaku. The next development was the family of the first domestic multi-channel radio relay communication systems, "Strela," in the 1600-2000 MHz range. "Strela-P" with 12 telephone channels was intended for suburban lines, "Strela-M" had 24 channels and was intended for trunk lines up to 2500 km long, and "Strela-T" could transmit a television signal over a distance of 300-400 km. The USSR radio relay communication network began to form on the Strela equipment in the directions Moscow-Ryazan, Moscow-Yaroslavl-Nerekhta-Kostroma-Ivanovo, Moscow-Voronezh, Moscow-Kaluga, Moscow-Tula, Frunze-Jalal-Abad.
Then more advanced RRL systems were created:
Beginning in 1948, the USSR made use ofradio jamming to prevent its citizens from listening to political broadcasts of theBritish Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and theVoice of America (VOA) and other western radio programs.[4][5] Over time this initial effort was escalated dramatically, with the approximately 200 jamming stations with a total between 3 and 4 megawatts of output power in 1952 expanded to about 1,700 transmitters with a combined 45 megawatts of output power.[4] By this latter date, the list of jammed foreign broadcasts had been expanded to include not only the successors to the BBC and VOA,Radio Free Europe andRadio Liberty, but alsoDeutsche Welle,Radio Vatican,Kol Israel, and others.[4] Total electricity consumed in the course of this jamming operation has been valued at tens of millions of dollars annually, exclusive of site construction and personnel costs.[4]
Jamming was initially attempted by means of superimposed random speech which mimicked station interference.[6] Due to the ineffectiveness of this method, however, a move was later made to the generation of random noise to obscure human speech.[6] From the early 1970s,satellites generating swinging carrier signals were used to interfere even more effectively.[6]
Nevertheless, people continued (or attempted) to listen to Western broadcasts. In fact, there was even no jamming of these signals (excluding Radio Free Europe) at all, from 1963 to 1968[citation needed], and from 1973 to 1980[citation needed]. In 1963, a further attempt was made to draw USSR radio listeners from western broadcasts by launching a radio station favouring Moscow city andoblast.
The jamming stopped in 1988 (Radio Free Europe was, however, unblocked in August 1991).
As the USSR began to fall in the 1980s, the radio organisation of the USSR began to shut down as private services were introduced and the USSR's stations were relaunched and refocused.[citation needed]
