Imagery maps Voice of Korea towers

TLDR

• Daily NK author Bruce Songhak Chung counts 23 steel towers in four zones at a Voice of Korea site.¹
• Heights estimated from shadows run from about 20 to 100 metres, using imagery dated 2 June 2025.¹
• Frequencies and broadcast directions cannot be confirmed from imagery, and the analysis has no second source.¹

Daily NK reports that satellite imagery of a shortwave transmitter site in Hyangsan county, Jagang province, shows 23 large lattice steel towers on square concrete foundations, grouped in four zones holding five, five, six and seven towers.¹ The site measures about 1.2 kilometres east to west and 745 metres north to south, the author says.¹ Daily NK describes it as a main transmission hub for Voice of Korea, the regime's international radio service, known as Radio Pyongyang until 2002, which airs in eight languages including English, Chinese, Japanese and Russian.¹

Why it matters: counting fixed structures and estimating their height from shadow length, sun elevation and season is a repeatable open-source method, and the author sets out the steps.¹ The imagery is dated 2 June 2025, though, so it shows the layout of the site, not its current activity.¹

Driving the news:

• Zones 1 and 2 hold the tallest towers, estimated at about 60 to 80 metres and 70 to 100 metres. Zones 3 and 4 hold shorter ones, about 20 to 30 metres.¹
• The author suggests the spread and varying heights may let operators run different antennas by frequency band, direction and target country, and may reduce interference.¹
• Daily NK says small maintenance buildings and support facilities are visible near the towers.¹
• The English article is dated 26 October. Daily NK's Korean edition carries a 22 October date.¹²

The big picture: Daily NK sets the site against Pyongyang's jamming of foreign radio aimed at North Korea, including programmes from Unification Media Group, the Seoul-based nonprofit that operates Daily NK, so the outlet has a stake in the subject.¹ The piece is part of the author's ongoing satellite imagery series on North Korean infrastructure.¹

The other side: the tower count, zone layout and heights are the author's own estimates from one imagery date. Daily NK says the exact frequencies and broadcast directions cannot be confirmed from satellite imagery alone, and the link between this site and Voice of Korea is stated as "known" without a cited source.¹

Single-source note: the analysis traces to one Daily NK author, using Google Earth imagery. The Korean edition is the same work in another language, not a second check, and the imagery was not independently reviewed here. The Korean version appeared on 22 October, five days before this draft.