Mount Evelyn DX Report: BEHIND THE CURTAIN

BEHIND THE CURTAIN

Preview of an Exciting New Book by Mark Fahey

Many readers to the MEDXR blog will know Mark Fahey, an Australian radio communications enthusiast who has visited North Korea on many occasions. His personal research and insights into all things North Korean have been well documented in many places.

Mark describes himself as an eHealth Clinical Informatics Specialist / Digital Media Developer, Author and Publisher, a communicator and strategic thinker driven by the passion of introducing new technologies to healthcare. He is also a regular plenary speaker and presenter of visionary solutions at international medical, scientific, technology and broadcasting conferences.

I am delighted to announce that Mark has released his Preview Behind The Curtain ebook in the iTunes Store as an Apple iBook for both MacOS and iOS devices. This book has been years in the making, is highly interactive with many audio and video examples, and very accessible.

As well as being most informative, it is also a highly entertaining read! Mark offers real insights into life in the "Hermit Kingdom", with photographs and media not previously seen, along with text that shines a light on how the government works and how it's citizens live from day to day.

The book is described as:

North Korea prevents its citizens from accessing any form of independent media. Any citizen who attempts to access foreign broadcasts to seek information from the outside world risks being interned in one of the state’s notorious prison camps. The very few visitors to the country are strictly forbidden to bring into North Korea radios or other communications equipment. As a result, little independent and objective information about the propaganda based mass-media of the country has been gathered or published. Over successive trips into each province of the country, Behind the Curtain has undertaken monitoring, recording and analysis of the propaganda and broadcast media used by the North Korean regime as a prime instrument of control over the population.

Behind the Curtain offers a immersive experience of interactive diagrams, photos, audio and video. The project when completed will be divided into a series of large downloadable volumes. Our first release, this Preview Volume allows select content from the project to be sampled in one single download.

The online source for tech, digital culture and entertainment content, Mashable, has described Mark's work as “This unprecedented project is a multimedia e-book containing audio, video, photographs and even interactive annotated panorama views has lifted the curtain on North Korea's propaganda machine, surreptitiously documenting the country's strange everyday life, which is shaped by the regime's indoctrination efforts.”

For radio enthusiasts, there is a large section devoted to NK broadcasting in its various forms, including an excellent summary devoted to both shortwave and mediumwave broadcasting. There is information on jamming with audio examples of the jamming sounds utilized by the government. There's also a very good section on the clandestine radio stations beaming into NK (Echo of Hope, Voice of the People, the Japanese Furusato No Kaze, and others), again with audio clips of their broadcasts. There's even a section on Korean numbers stations.

Other fascinating sections of the ebook include a look at NK television (there are some very funny video clips captured here!!), the role and pervasiveness of propaganda in film, music and especially for visitors, and some very perceptive insights into the country's leadership, children, industry, technology, agriculture and attempts at reunification.

This is a wonderful book! I have downloaded it onto both my early 2014 iPad Air and my 27" iMac computer and all the interactivity performed flawlessly. iBooks on your Mac requires OS X 10.9 or later.

And aside from all that, amazingly the ebook is currently FREE! Here is the link for your free copy:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1215367066

It's a big download because of all the included interactive materials (1.8 Gigs on iPad). But it's well worth the wait!

Read more about the book at: http://behindthecurtain.asia/

Congratulations, Mark on your fine work.

73 and good DX to you all,

Rob Wagner VK3BVW