Cold War radio jamming

Overview
Both the USA, Cuba, the USSR, China and the GDR reguarly blocked rival nations programs with jamming devices. Most nations have jammed some station at some time in there history.

The concept
It is the deliberate broacasting of man made interfearance or one's own transmitions on top of a rival's frequncey with enough strength as to smother there transmitions and stop it from beaing heard.

The result
The operating transmitters for domestic radio stations on the same or nearby frequencies was a routeen thing in the GDR (E. Germany). For example, for many years East Germany operated at Wiederau a transmitter on the same mediumwave frequency (575 kHz) that Mühlacker radio transmitter used with an output power of 100 kW, which made it difficult to receive the AFN Mühlacker radio transmitter in much of the East Germany The use of formal and informal and informal jammig tecniques lead to a "power race" in which broadcasters and jammers alike repeatedly increased their transmission power, utilised highly directional antennas and/or added extra frequencies (known as "barrage" or "frequency diversity" broadcasting) to the already heavily overcrowded shortwave bands to such an extent that many broadcasters not directly targeted by the jammers (including pro-Soviet stations) suffered from the rising levels of noise and interference.

Soviet Targets
Radio Free Europe

Radio Liberty

Voice of America

BBC World Service

Deutsche Welle

Radio Bajing (occasionaly)

Radio Tirane (occasionaly)

Radio Vaticana (ocasionaly)

Kol Yisrael  (occasionaly

Radio Canada International (occasionaly).

The jamming usually only took place during programming in languages widely spoken in Eastern Bloc countries (e.g., Russian, Polish, Czech, German, Lithuanian, etc.). Programmes in English or other major Western languages were rarely (if ever) jammed intentionally.