The Da Nang Department of Information and Communications has officially refuted recent untruthful coverage by some Vietnamese media agencies regarding the Ngu Hanh Son District Radio Station being briefly disturbed by an unidentified radio wave airing Chinese language programming on 17 July.

A radio transmitter in Khue My Ward

The Director of the city-based Zone 3 Radio Frequency Centre, Mr Dao Duy Phuc, explained that one of the 14 public loudspeakers in the district’s Khue My Ward did in fact face interference at around 2.00pm on 17 July, but it only lasted for about a minute.  The affected loudspeaker is located at 28 Truong Van Hien Street.

Mr Phuc remarked that this problem is quite common, and it usually takes just a short time to deal with it.

The reason for the disturbance is thought to be technical problems.  The Khue My Radio Station broadcasts on FM frequency 97.5 MHz, which is out-of-date and vulnerable to possible interference from nearby frequencies.

A local resident living near the loudspeaker said that she had not heard any sounds of Chinese language programming at all, and a recent rumour of the alien radio wave coming from the sea is not true.

Mr Phuc also suggested that more effective measures should be taken to make sure that such interference problems never happen again.

Importance should be attached to increasing the receiver sensitivity, adjusting the operation of antennae, and promoting radio encryption in order to avoid possible interference of radio waves.

He also stressed the need for the district authorities to move the allocation for FM radio from the 97.5 MHz band to a larger 54 - 68 MHz band in order to improve the operation of the district’s radio station.

The affected loudspeaker has now resumed normal operation.