Radio 1 emergency broadcast station has poor reception in 7 out of 10 tunnels

Korea Communications Commission (South Korea) announced nationwide that the tunnel disaster broadcast reception status of KBS Radio 1 has a rating of 27.4%.

KBS or Korean Broadcasting System is a public broadcaster of South Korea and one of its network of stations KBS Radio 1 is an emergency information station.

On April 27, 2020, the Korea Communications Commission announced the results of the ‘Disaster Broadcasting Environment Survey’ for 4,371 road, rail and subway tunnels nationwide.

Through the survey, the Korea Communications Commission measured both analog broadcast and digital reception inside 2,716 road tunnels, 685 railroad tunnels, and 970 subway stations.

As a result of the survey, the FM broadcast reception rate was 27.4% up 5 percentage points from 2017 (22.4%).

Conversely, the reception was poor in 3,173 tunnels, which is 72.6%.

Specifically, it was found that the broadcast reception rating was 23.1% in the road tunnel, 3.5% in the railway tunnel, and 56.3% in the subway.

DMB or digital radio transmission technology is South Korea version’s HD radio in the US or DAB in UK.

DMB’s broadcast reception rate rose 16.4% from 19.3% to 35.7% (1,562).

In 2,809 tunnels, which accounted for 64.3%, broadcast reception was poor.

It was 38.2% in road tunnels, 5% in railroad tunnels, and 50.5% in subways.

In particular, in the railway tunnel, the FM broadcast reception rate was only 3.5%, and the DMB broadcast reception rate was only 5%.

In the case of DMB, it was explained that broadcast reception was not possible when the reception status was poor, but in FM radio, it was possible to listen with 967 (30.5%) out of 3,173 locations indicated as poor reception.

According to the Korea Communications Commission, the number of tunnels increased by 515 compared to 2017, but efforts to improve the reception environment and installation of disaster broadcast relay facilities in newly created tunnels have increased the rate of broadcast reception.

Korean Broadcasting System(KBS; Hangul: 한국방송공사; Hanja: 韓國放送公社; Hanguk Bangsong Gongsa) is one of the public broadcasting, which was established in 1927. KBS headquarters are located in the Yeouido district of Seoul. It is one of the biggest South Korean television networks.

KBS Radio 1 is running on the format of news, current affairs, drama, documentary and culture. It also provides disaster and emergency information.