Stations Radio Havana Cuba

[GB46]

Starting at 02:00 UTC tonight RHC's audio on 6145 kHz was unusually clear for a change, except during Arni Coro's DXers Unlimited program. His voice was so distorted that it sounded like he had a bad case of laryngitis, and I couldn't understand a word he said. Following his program, everything else was perfectly clear. Either Arni is ill and on the air when he shouldn't be, or something happened to the recording of his program. Did anyone else notice this?

DXers Unlimited is the only program I look forward to on RHC.

 

[safetypro79]

I noticed that here in SW Idaho, they have a strong signal about S20

73

John
Hidden Springs, Idaho
Drake SW-8, 2800 ft elevation, 65 ft end fed LW with 9:1 balun

 

[n5rv]

I think Arnie just runs out of steam. He starts his segment off strong but his words turn to a chopped up mess as he is trying to talk so fast that all enunciation is lost. And yes, his voice has gotten very "gravelly", been that way for awhile. He's pretty old now.

 

[n5rv]

Arnie was a young man at the Bay of Pigs invasion (1961) and he cofounded RHC.

 

[GB46]

I think Arnie just runs out of steam. He starts his segment off strong but his words turn to a chopped up mess as he is trying to talk so fast that all enunciation is lost. And yes, his voice has gotten very "gravelly", been that way for awhile. He's pretty old now.

Yes, with shortwave broadcasts structured to fit into one hour, some segments are much too short to convey anything meaningful, so I guess Arnie is trying to get as much into his segment as he can. It's kind of funny, actually, how the broadcast schedule is announced at the top of the hour, as if the station is going off the air or changing languages. A few seconds later we are again welcomed to RHC's English language service to North America, even though we had already been listening to it.

Arnie was a young man at the Bay of Pigs invasion (1961) and he cofounded RHC.

I suppose I'm roughly Arnie's age, because I was 15 in 1961.

 

[GB46]

I noticed that here in SW Idaho, they have a strong signal about S20

73

John
Hidden Springs, Idaho
Drake SW-8, 2800 ft elevation, 65 ft end fed LW with 9:1 balun

They used to practically pin the meter here, too, but now they're usually no stronger than S7, which is only a hair above my noise level. Arnie once wrote in an email to me that their antennas are aimed at Chicago. The only services listed for them targeting Western North America are in Spanish or Esperanto.

 

[n5rv]

Yes, with shortwave broadcasts structured to fit into one hour, some segments are much too short to convey anything meaningful, so I guess Arnie is trying to get as much into his segment as he can. It's kind of funny, actually, how the broadcast schedule is announced at the top of the hour, as if the station is going off the air or changing languages. A few seconds later we are again welcomed to RHC's English language service to North America, even though we had already been listening to it.


I suppose I'm roughly Arnie's age, because I was 15 in 1961.

I was born in 1960, so my focus at that time was on eating and sleeping pretty much.

 

[ridgescan]

RHC comes in here at +20 over too. Too bad I can't listen to it for one minute because content They must point their power straight at the west coast the way it slams the meter every night no matter what.

 

[GB46]

I was born in 1960, so my focus at that time was on eating and sleeping pretty much.

Just wait; you'll start to refocus on them once you reach my age.

 

[GB46]

RHC comes in here at +20 over too. Too bad I can't listen to it for one minute because content They must point their power straight at the west coast the way it slams the meter every night no matter what.

Then their antennas must be awfully directional, so they'd have to set their aim at about 300 degrees to hit me with that kind of strength. As it stands now, Brazil's Radio Nacional Amazonia comes in much stronger here, despite being farther away.

I have to rely on my R75 for S unit readings, because the Sangean portable's meter has a scale of 1 to 10, and I don't know what the equivalent would be in S units. Signals sound like they're the same strength on both radios, even though I'm not using an external antenna on the Sangean.

SWBC can no longer be counted on for DX, because so many of the stations are received through relays in the U.S. That takes some of the excitement out of it. The only truly distant stations I pick up, besides the one in Brazil, are BSKSA in Saudi Arabia, the Voice of Korea in N. Korea, the Voice of Greece and Radio Romania Intl. RNZI used to come in fairly strong here, but lately I'm not hearing them at all.

If I want DX I'm better off monitoring the ham bands. Voice is so much easier to make out in sideband mode that I wish all the broadcasters used it. The FT8 digital mode is even more reliable, decoding signals I can't even hear through the noise, but the transmissions are so short that there's virtually no content worth looking at besides the station IDs and locations.

 

[ridgescan]

Then their antennas must be awfully directional, so they'd have to set their aim at about 300 degrees to hit me with that kind of strength. As it stands now, Brazil's Radio Nacional Amazonia comes in much stronger here, despite being farther away.

I have to rely on my R75 for S unit readings, because the Sangean portable's meter has a scale of 1 to 10, and I don't know what the equivalent would be in S units. Signals sound like they're the same strength on both radios, even though I'm not using an external antenna on the Sangean.

SWBC can no longer be counted on for DX, because so many of the stations are received through relays in the U.S. That takes some of the excitement out of it. The only truly distant stations I pick up, besides the one in Brazil, are BSKSA in Saudi Arabia, the Voice of Korea in N. Korea, the Voice of Greece and Radio Romania Intl. RNZI used to come in fairly strong here, but lately I'm not hearing them at all.

If I want DX I'm better off monitoring the ham bands. Voice is so much easier to make out in sideband mode that I wish all the broadcasters used it. The FT8 digital mode is even more reliable, decoding signals I can't even hear through the noise, but the transmissions are so short that there's virtually no content worth looking at besides the station IDs and locations.

Try VOA transmitting from Selebi-Phikwe (Madagascar) in the 03-0400UTC time slots on either 6080kHz or 5925kHz. I get them so strong here lately I figure you'll get them up there maybe even on the whips. That's over a 10,000 mile trip to my antenna.

 

[GB46]

Try VOA transmitting from Selebi-Phikwe (Madagascar) in the 03-0400UTC time slots on either 6080kHz or 5925kHz. I get them so strong here lately I figure you'll get them up there maybe even on the whips. That's over a 10,000 mile trip to my antenna.

Can't hear them; the 49-meter band is too noisy here in the evening. I've found that the evening hours give me a very short window for listening, anyway. During the morning hours I used to catch Radio Feda in Madagascar in Arabic on 9675, but they seem to have changed their schedule. BSKSA in Saudi Arabia uses that frequency now -- in the same language, of course. But then, I can already hear their religious chanting on 13710 at any time between 16:00 and 18:00 UTC.

 

[mbott]

RHC needs to remove the Egyptian engineers that run their transmitters. It's a shame to have so much radio and so little modulation or over modulation as the case may be.

--
Mike

 

[GB46]

RHC needs to remove the Egyptian engineers that run their transmitters. It's a shame to have so much radio and so little modulation or over modulation as the case may be.

I've often wondered whether their audio problems are with their transmitters or with the feeds from their studios.

When I was a ham back in the sixties my transmitter ran only 18 watts input, but I was hard pressed to find a modulator with enough output to modulate it (the rig was exclusively in AM mode, and plate modulated). An old PA amp almost did the job, but I still wound up shouting into the mike, so I had to build a mike preamp.

PS: I think that Arnie Coro must be aware of the problem and know what's causing it.

 

[ridgescan]

RHC needs to remove the Egyptian engineers that run their transmitters. It's a shame to have so much radio and so little modulation or over modulation as the case may be.

--
Mike

Haha that made me laugh! Or how about when it sounds like they dropped the mic into a beehive

 

[GB46]

Their music is usually much clearer than their voices, and much more pleasant to listen to in general. Maybe they should transition into an all-music format. As for that beehive, their interval signal could be a movement from a sting quartet: four musical bees buzzing in harmony!

 

[AlphaDX]

"Esta es Radio Habana Cuba, Transmitiendo desde Cuba, Territorio Libre en América."
"This is Radio Havana Cuba, Broadcasting from Cuba, Free Territory in America."