AFN Launches First New FM Radio Station In Japan In 70 Years
The American Forces Network launched its first new FM radio station in Japan in over 70 years last week, AFN Sasebo FM 93.1. This comes after a decade-long effort to restore broadcasting capabilities to the southern Japanese port city.
The milestone marks a significant communications upgrade for U.S. military personnel and Japanese locals who have relied on streaming services since 2017.
The new frequency represents an engineering feat in Japan's challenging mountainous terrain. AFN-Pacific deputy director Scott Williams noted that 'standing up a new FM frequency had not been done before by AFN-Pacific anywhere in the Pacific region.'
The push for FM capability began in 2014 when Sasebo's AM tower faced severe maintenance issues. Three years later, AFN dismantled the deteriorating structure entirely.
'Our AFN station in Sasebo has a long history of service in that community and has always been one of our most popular stations,' Williams said. 'Since losing their AM tower, the AFN Sasebo station had to rely on AFN's streaming radio service, AFN Go, to keep its audiences informed.'
Initial attempts to restore service proved frustrating. AFN-Pacific sourced 1.5-watt mini-antennas from the United States and placed them around the base, but building structures blocked the signals.
The technical team then embarked on months of testing with Japanese regulators. Kenneth Burton, who leads AFN-Pacific's technical services, described the unique partnership: 'Working with the Japanese government on getting this frequency has been a unique experience. Nothing like this has been done in the past 70 years.'
Japan's Ministry of Internal Communications conducted monthly inspections as AFN gradually increased broadcasting power. The team started at 50 watts and reached 300 watts by March 2025.
'Every step of the way required thorough planning and testing,' Burton said. 'We drove all over the area while testing and despite the mountainous terrain were able to establish a clear signal with a new FM transmitter.'
The station's popularity extends well beyond the base fence. Williams recounted how one Japanese listener drove nearly 100 kilometers from Fukuoka just to tune in during testing phases.
'We have a huge shadow audience of local Japanese listeners at each of our stations,' Williams said. 'The Japanese people really value AFN and love listening to our local broadcasts.'
Local military leadership championed the project throughout its development. Fleet Activities Sasebo commander Capt. Michael Fontaine emphasized the practical benefits beyond entertainment value.
'AFN programming has long been an important source of news, entertainment, and emergency information for listeners both on and off the base,' Fontaine said. 'The ability to reach the entire Sasebo area during an emergency will improve our readiness and response capability.'
Still, the achievement represents just the beginning. Williams revealed plans to expand FM capabilities to other installations across Japan.
'Our work is not ending here in Sasebo,' he said. 'We are looking to bring this great FM broadcast capability to other bases in Japan, and we've begun scouting sites at MCAS Iwakuni and Misawa Air Base.'
The new station will broadcast music, news, command information, and emergency alerts covering typhoons and safety issues. For a network whose motto is 'We Bring You Home,' the FM launch delivers on a long-awaited promise to reconnect with audiences in southern Japan.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Tariff Fallout Hits LA Port: Cargo Decline Leaves Half of Dockworkers Idle
Dockworkers at the Port of Los Angeles are seeing a shortage of work opportunities due to the decline in cargo entering the California gateway as Chinese exports to the U.S. continue to plummet. Nearly half of the longshoremen who support operations at the port went without work over the past two weeks, Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, told The Los Angeles Times in a Saturday report. More from Sourcing Journal Hapag-Lloyd Bookings Double on China-US Route in Weeks After Tariff Truce Guess Limits Tariff Impact to Less Than $10M, Adjusts Sourcing and Buying Strategies US Trade Deficit Contracted in April Amid Tariff-Driven Import Paralysis Over the last 25 work shifts, which span roughly two weeks, only 733 jobs per day were available for 1,575 longshoremen looking for work. The cargo decline has stemmed from President Donald Trump's tariffs on U.S. trading partners initially imposed in April, led by duties on Chinese goods that at one point reached 145 percent. In the wake of those tariffs, American companies had been cancelling import bookings, while ocean carriers on the trans-Pacific trade lane from Asia to the U.S. West Coast began blanking sailings. In May, 17 cargo ships canceled their planned trips to Los Angeles amid the plummeting demand. Although China is just one of the dozens of countries slapped with tariffs on its exports, the magnitude of products flowing from the country to the U.S. gives it a more outsized role on the trade lane and at the Port of Los Angeles itself. About 40 percent of imports that pass through the terminals at the port originate from China, Seroka said in April. In May, China's exports to the U.S. had their sharpest drop in five years—since the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic—to $28.8 billion, according to customs data. The 34.5 percent decline was the second-biggest pullback on record after the 54 percent collapse in February 2020 as the pandemic upended global trade. The May export drop has been reflected in the decline in cargo at the Port of Los Angeles. While the California gateway has not yet released official statistics for May, the port processed 25 percent less cargo than forecast for the month, according to Seroka. With less cargo comes fewer work opportunities. The 733 'job orders' are a significant decline from the usual range between 1,700 and 2,000 job orders posted during a typical day shift. For night shifts, 1,100 to 1,400 opportunities are typically posted. At the Port of L.A., terminal operators post available work opportunities, known as job orders, on a digital board three times a day. Dockworkers can review the job orders at each shift and bid on the jobs they want to take. If there are more longshoremen than job orders, a portion of them will go without pay. 'They haven't been laid off, but they're not working nearly as much as they did previously,' Seroka told The Times. 'Since the tariffs went into place, and in May specifically, we've really seen the work go off on the downside.' Concerns over the lighter cargo loads have been apparent in industries across the supply chain impacted by port throughput, including trucking and rail, which are tasked with transporting the cargo to warehouses. Retail businesses that would otherwise be taking in these deliveries also remain concerned about the impacts, particularly SMBs that may not have had the luxury of front-loading goods into the U.S. However, the 90-day rollback of the China tariffs in early May has since resulted in a rapid rush to bring goods into the U.S. ahead of a new Aug. 14 negotiation deadline, which could ultimately result in a flood of containers into the Port of Los Angeles and its sister port, the Port of Long Beach. Hapag-Lloyd said it saw bookings out of China more than doubled in the three weeks after the trade truce went into effect, illustrating just how dramatic the swing has been. Such excess ordering, alongside an increase in trans-Pacific ocean freight capacity in line with demand, sets U.S. ports up for another likely escalation in freight handling. This would benefit the dockworkers and result in an increase in job orders across ports once the first wave of post-tariff truce container vessels start to reach the U.S. later this month. Although analysts have predicted that the San Pedro Bay ports could see record traffic across June and July due to the increased capacity from Asia to North America, Seroka has continually held a more reserved viewpoint about possible impacts on Los Angeles. 'The June numbers that we're projecting right now are nowhere near where they traditionally should be,' Seroka said.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Hapag-Lloyd Bookings Double on China-US Route in Weeks After Tariff Truce
After the temporary tariff relief on Chinese imports into the U.S. resulted in a 50-percent one-week surge in bookings for Hapag-Lloyd on the trade route between countries, container flow accelerated even further in the weeks after. Bookings out of China more than doubled in the three weeks after the 90-day trade truce was put into effect, according to CEO Rolf Habben Jansen. More from Sourcing Journal Guess Limits Tariff Impact to Less Than $10M, Adjusts Sourcing and Buying Strategies Panama Canal Sees Post-Drought Spike in Container Shipping Transits US Trade Deficit Contracted in April Amid Tariff-Driven Import Paralysis 'We now need to see over the upcoming couple of weeks what is going to happen, and how much of that cargo rush is going to remain,' said Habben Jansen in a recent online panel discussion hosted by the ocean carrier. Despite various projections calling for a contraction in global container volumes for the year, Hapag-Lloyd revised its outlook upward from its previous flat growth forecast on the back of the recent uptick, projecting global container demand to increase 4 percent. 'I would still expect us to see decent growth in the second quarter,' said Habben Jansen. While China-to-U.S. volumes account for roughly 5 percent of Hapag-Lloyd's total business, the U.S. overall represents 27 percent of its volumes, Habben Jansen said. Approximately 22 percent of global container flows at the company go through American ports. With the U.S. remaining a sizable chunk of the liner's business, the concerns of volatility stemming from the stop-and-start nature of President Donald Trump's tariff decisions makes it challenging to plan for. Case in point, in the company's earnings call in mid-May, the CEO said Hapag-Lloyd saw bookings decrease 20 percent on average in the period after the Liberation Day tariffs were applied and ahead of the tariff rollback. But the China-to-U.S. demand picked up so quickly that Hapag-Lloyd and Gemini Cooperation partner Maersk introduced a new direct trans-Pacific service with a rotation of Xiamen, China; Busan, South Korea; and Long Beach, Calif.. The first sailing will take place out of Xiamen on June 24. The 'WC6' service will connect Busan and Long Beach with a transit time of 14 days, and a competitive direct Xiamen service into Long Beach in 18 days. Hapag-Lloyd's move reflects the industry at large, which has sought to add more capacity on the trans-Pacific trade lane to capitalize on shippers' rush to get cargo space ahead of tariff deadlines in July and August. As the Gemini alliance partners prep to start their new service offering, the carriers still lead the pack when it comes to schedule reliability, keeping their 90 percent schedule reliability goal intact across March and April. The alliance expects to be fully 'phased in' by July, meaning that all shared vessels will sail on Gemini schedules. 'Only then will it be possible to truly evaluate their performance,' said Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence, in the monthly update. Gemini Cooperation officially came in with 90.7 percent reliability, with MSC following suit far behind at 69.8 percent. The Premier Alliance of Ocean Network Express (ONE), HMM and Yang Ming recorded 53 percent reliability in the two-month stretch. Habben Jansen said he was encouraged by the alliance's ability to ensure Hapag-Lloyd's first-quarter volumes surpassed the wider market with 9 percent growth, ahead of the 4.2 percent global growth experienced by the wider container shipping sector. 'That was the intention when we started [the partnership]. We knew that we needed to attract more volumes to fill those ships, also because we lose fewer sailings as we don't do blank sailings, as we used to do,' Habben Jansen said. 'And we sail on time, which basically means that we can use the ships more often. It's very nice to see that also reflected in the numbers, and hopefully we'll see more of that as we move into Q2.' Although competitor CMA CGM has introduced another service line back on the Suez Canal route, Hapag-Lloyd does not have intentions of following suit—the attitude still taken by most major container shipping firms. According to Habben Jansen, the story remains the same. There must be a clear indication that vessels and crew will be safe from potential Houthi attacks. 'If we go back then we will have to do that step by step, as we would like to avoid chaos in the Mediterranean and in Europe in particular, and to a lesser extent, on the East Coast of the U.S.,' said Habben Jansen. 'Right now, we do not see any signs that it is going to be and remain safe in the near future.'
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
3 Japanese Car Brands Named the Least Reliable of 2025
In general, Japanese cars enjoy a reputation as the most reliable on the market. But does that mean every Japanese car manufacturer produces cars that rarely spend time in the shop? Explore More: For You: If you want a dependable Japanese car, watch out for these three brands flashing red flags in 2025. Nissan has frequently found itself in the news over the last year — for all the wrong reasons. In May, CBS News reported that Nissan is laying off 15% of its global workforce, roughly 20,000 employees, after losing $4.5 billion last year. Just a few months earlier, Moody's downgraded Nissan's stock rating to 'junk' status. 'Nissan experienced a string of CVT transmission issues that continue to plague it to this day,' explained Alex Black of car research platform EpicVIN. 'Owners complain about jerking, slipping or requiring full replacements far earlier than they should.' Sure enough, Nissan ranked dead last among Japanese automakers in this year's reliability rankings from Consumer Reports. Trending Now: Asian car companies discovered they could sell their higher-end cars for more money by marketing them under separate luxury brands. Toyota has Lexus, Honda has Acura, Hyundai has Genesis, and Nissan has Infiniti. The latter suffers from all the same reliability issues as its parent company. After all, Infinitis are manufactured in the same factories, with the same parts and processes. They just get stamped with a different logo. Andrey Smirnov, owner of Silverstone Auto Spa, sees these problems with Nissans and Infinitis firsthand. 'Infinitis have more problems than their competitors, especially on the electrical side,' Smirnov said. 'Engineering simplicity and reliability go hand in hand, and Infiniti makes more complex cars than other Japanese brands.' In WhatCar's latest reliability survey, Nissan ranked fourth among the least reliable car companies in the world. That puts it among such dubiously dependable brands as MG, Alfa Romeo and Vauxhall. Mitsubishi has also seen its share of struggles over the last few years. The automaker keeps missing its profit forecasts and adjusting projections lower. Last year, that included a 76% drop, and a 26% drop reported in May of this year by Reuters. In fact, Motor1 reports the company stopped shipping cars to the U.S. altogether amid President Donald Trump's tariffs. 'Mitsubishi has problems with aged technology and low-cost components,' added Black. 'Many analysts argue they've failed to remain current — both in driving performance and long-term reliability.' Alan Gelfand of German Car Depot also sees trouble among Mitsubishis. 'We've seen plenty of reported CVT transmission issues, on top of build quality concerns,' he said. Mitsubishi has grown so irrelevant as a brand in the U.S. that Consumer Reports didn't even include it in its annual reliability report. In JD Power's 2025 dependability report, Mitsubishi ranked last among Japanese carmakers. Steer clear of them in 2025, and consider better-rated Asian automakers like Toyota, Honda, Subaru, and Hyundai. More From GOBankingRates 10 Cars That Outlast the Average Vehicle This article originally appeared on 3 Japanese Car Brands Named the Least Reliable of 2025