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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Chaos in Libya

HOT SPOT DXING
Witnesses say protesters and security forces are battling for control of central Tripoli, with snipers opening fire on crowds and Qaddafi supporters speeding through in cars, shooting and running over protesters.
More from Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/

Libya: 1125 kHz now in the hands of protestors
The English and French websites of the Libyan Jamahiriya Broadcasting Corporation (LJBC) have not been updated since Thursday 17 February. However the LJBC Arabic website has been updated today. It claims that President Gaddafi has received messages of support by telephone from the presidents of Senegal and Guinea

According to Tarek Zeidan reporting from Denmark to Ydun’s Medium Wave Info, (www.mediumwave.info/index.html) the high power mediumwave transmitter at El Beida is now in the hands of the protestors, and was heard last night around 2245 UTC identifying itself in Arabic as Radio Free Libya from the Green Mountain. Tarek says that other Libyan stations he could hear at the same time appeared to be pro-Gaddafi songs, and at 0630 UTC this morning 1449 and 675 kHz were re-broadcasting the speech of the president’s son Saifulislam Gaddafi.

The Foreign Policy blog refers to the Internet site http://libya.blog-video.tv/ and refers to it as a radio station called ‘Radio Free Benghazi’ with ‘breathless amateur announcers’. In fact, that site seems to be a chat facility enabling protestors to speak to each other, and as far as I know this is not the material being broadcast on 1125 kHz. It was in operation before protestors took over the LJBC facility. But since I only speak a few words of Arabic, I am willing to stand corrected.

A good source of breaking news for those of us who don’t speak Arabic is the 17th February 2011 blog. I saw some video on Al Jazeera last night attributed to this source. Unfortunately this does not automatically refresh, but is constantly updated. I tried following events on Twitter, but there are too many time-wasters posting information that’s hours old, or simply irrelevant.

My RNW colleague Ehard Goddijn has also found a live stream feed at www.livestream.com/libya17feb from the same people who produce the 17th February blog. This also appears to be a chat room using Skype. I heard some English as well as Arabic.
(R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)

Libya Turns Off the Internet and Massacres Begin
First, Libya blocked news sites and Facebook. Then, beginning Friday night, according to Arbor Networks, a network security and Internet monitoring company, announced that Libya had cut itself off from the Internet. Hours later the Libyan dictator’s solders started slaughtering protesters. As of Sunday afternoon, U.S. Eastern time the death toll was above 200 in the city of Benghazi alone.

Welcome to 2011. While dictators in the most repressive regimes, such as North Korea and Cuba, have long kept Internet contact to the world to a bare minimum, less restrictive dictatorships, such as Egypt and Libya left the doors to the Internet cracked open to the public. Now, though, realizing that they could no longer hide their abuses from a world a Twitter tweet away, the new model autocracies, such as Libya and Bahrain have realized that they need to cut their Internet links before bringing out the guns.

Additional story at: ZD Net http://www.zdnet.com/blog/networking/libya-turns-off-the-internet-and-the-massacres-begin/711
(GlobalNet Internet Radio blog http://www.globalnetmt.com/ )

Frequencies to check
Keep an eye on MWARA AFI frequencies 5517.0, 8894.0, 11300.0 and RDARA 8873 for aircraft activity from Libya via Tripoli.
(MilcomMP/Twitter Larry Van Horn @MilcomMP)
Libya on Shortwave
The following is my most up to date schedule for Libya. Any corrections or monitoring observations are welcomed at the above email address, or posted on the Monitoring Times Shortwave Central Facebook Fan page.
Gayle VH

LJBC Voice of Africa
All times UTC
All programming targeted to Africa

Arabic
0400-0457 9560/ 5855
0500-0557 7370
0500-0600 5855/ 9735/ 11905
0600-0657 5855/ 9735/ 11905/ 13745
0700-0757 11650/ 15360
0700-0800 17750
0800-0857 13750/ 17750/ 17815
0900-1000 15505/ 17730/ 21695
1000-1100 15505/ 17730/ 21695
1100-1157 15505/ 17730/ 21695
2000-2100 7480/ 9470/ 12105
2100-2157 7480/ 9470/ 12105

English
1400-1500 17725/ 21675/ 21695
1500-1557 17725/ 21675/ 21695

French
1600-1700 11800/ 12105/ 17770
1700-1800 11800/ 17725

Hausa
1800-1900 9420/ 11800/ 12105
1900-2000 9420/ 11800/ 12105

Swahili
1200-1300 17730/ 21695
1300-1357 17730/ 21695
(Klingenfuss 2011 Shortwave Frequency Guide)