European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 18, 1980, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Re radio Liberty Freedom by j. King Cruger staff writer Nodi i m i s i Day. Ill year ago. Radio i Etc Europe made its first broadcast from a trailer parked on the outskirts of Munich. Its facilities were limited in a single 7 unit portable transmitter broadcasting 10 hours a week. Today with total Power of about 5 million Watts re and its sister station. Radio i Ibert. Are among the most powerful broadcasting stations in the world transmitting More hours in various languages 21 than any other Sta Tion. Ralph Waller executive vice president of re re. Says that current world tension has increased the thirst for information in countries to which the stations broadcast. The facility is upgrading the Power Levels of various transmitters. It has a total of 45 21 in Cie Many. In in Portugal and h in Spain. With the exception of one medium wave facility All arc shortwave transmitters. Radio tree Europe beams its broadcasts to the Peoples of the five soviet satellites Poland Czechoslovakia Hungary. Romania and Bulgaria. Radio Liberty consolidated w Ith re several years ago. Broadcasts exclusively to the soviet Union in m non russian languages. Radio Liberty is very heavily jammed throughout the soviet Union and Only Hungary and Romania Don t or to Jam Rit s signals. Jamming is constant. Pc think they Are con stantly adding new equipment. In 1973, they stopped jamming other stations and hat freed More equip ment to concentrate on us says Ernie Campbell director of engineering for the to stations. Waller says that the russians have taken the View that official radio voices such As voice of America the bbl and Deutsche Welle Are All right but that re and re arc pirate stations. Their propaganda tends to be primitive and crude. They re not Happy with our Lisle Norship Only israeli radio und us Are jammed. I think that says something says Walter and adds that no one can Sec the end of our  jamming  is quite costly to the East. Experts say the jamming equipment used Cost $250 million and operating costs arc More than $100 million annually. The work Force involved in the jamming is said to number More than 5.000. There Are sound technical reasons for locating the stations transmitters As far Back from their Eastern Europe listeners As Spain and Portugal. Campbell explains that the transmitters arc there be cause Short wave signals leave the transmitters at an Angle and hit the ionosphere a kind of ceiling two to three Hundred Kilometres above the Earth composed of electrically charged particles. The ionosphere acts like a Mirror and reflects the signal Back to Earth. Campbell says that for various reasons the Ideal placement of the transmitters is 1.500 to 3.000 Kilometres Back from the area to be reached. This also give1, us a significant advantage Over Jam mers at certain times. The Best time for us is Twilight and the several hours following this is because of the so called Twilight immunity Factor " says Campbell. He explains that a Stern hammers have two Basic ways of attacking the re re signals. One is with a sky  signal of their own they set up powerful transmitters on the other Side of the target and Bounce their jamming signal off the ionosphere at in Angle calculated to bring it Down to  at the same Point As the incoming broadcasts Twilight pm mum cripples  so Wae hammers for a few hours Ever Day i lie Sieni stations Are immune from jamming during the Twilight hours because it is the Sun that gives the ionosphere the Ekx inc charge that turns it into a reflecting signal. Since the Sun i s Down a few hours earlier in the fast than in the West this  the ionosphere starts break ing up a few hours earlier in the  than in the West and during those few hours when the Selling is gone in the East but is still there in the West the hammers in the East can no longer Bounce their signals off it while news in five languages via computerized terminals. Victor Werbitsky monitoring a soviet broadcast. Page the stars and stripes the broadcasters in the West arc still Able to do this does t help us in the major cities we saturate us with ground wave jamming. That if using Small transmitters on our frequency. A Miller covers Only a Small area. I m afraid i effective but it s expensive for them to use Buccat number of transmitters  says Camp went to work for re e 18 years ago. Do Pic jamming efforts the stations re Bially command a Large share of the polemic Cnoc in the East. List Norship is highest in Hungary. Poland an Nia. In Romania surveys have found that rot percent of the population Over the age of 14 i re and that approximately two thirds of t regular listeners. Walter says that for various reasons one of i ing jamming. Radio Liberty does t have Asma cars in the soviet Union As do the voice of aim the bbl. Walter says the stations stay in tune with the cars by using Western european polling Institute Contact people coming out of Eastern Europe. Most arc casual tourists who reside in was rope. There arc hundreds of thousands of them t arc easily  he says that some 6,000 to 7.000 East euro surveyed this Way each year but that for of Viott it is much More difficult to Contact soviet cilia year radio Liberty Only managed to Contact i Els. Walter says the rate of rejection from those asked if they might be polled is is astonishing and that listener satisfaction is highly positive. The stations broadcast in 21 languages but from a 10-minute English language news in Centary show on the czech sen ice ind an e speaking disc jockey on the hungarian t Many of its employees can t understand a � the product they help put out. Of the approximately 1,000 re re Stafi work in the sprawling Munich Headquarters adjacent to English Garden More than halt arc from the. To. A Small number of staff men american born while Many others arc natural citizens. We Don t think our staffers should travel to and we Don t think they la let them in although have covered events in Rumania and have gone presidential visits to the East Walter says. Primarily we rely on monitoring of their inf sources their radio and newspapers. I think we probably have one of the Best Colli experts on soviet and East european affair  a facility at Schleissheim Germany near regularly monitors 63 radio stations broadcast All Over the world. The albanian news service is terribly incr cause the albanians Hale everyone observes w additionally the stations get information by ing what Western reporters write and by cont visitors to the West from Eastern Europe. Many visitors from the  drop in Here 0 us. It s hard to know if Thev Are taking a i Walter. People from Hungary Czechoslovakia arc can travel More freely than is commonly per Civ the stations operate a source material based on their own research. This is sub scr by Many news services. The stations have their own news bureaus ill Paris Honn and Rome and have additional i London and Paris. These studios hire a fair i contributing free lancers. One of these free lancers in London was Oca of a bulgarian defector who died of a myself in l 78 three Days after being attacked on Brid by a Man wielding an umbrella. The wed Etaf