Radio Havana Cuba: a Missing Voice around the World
The good news is that Radio Havana Cuba’s (RHC) signal strength is usually fair or good, and that TRT Ankara has left 6000 kHz with its morning programs. There is therefore no interference with (or complete blanking out of) RHC when RHC is actually on air. But that is a big „when“. You can’t expect a signal for the complete second half of the night anymore – you are lucky when you get to listen to some signal at all.
When that happens, signal strength is usually not an issue, but modulation varies on a generally poor level. When I gave 6000 kHz a try at 04:45 UTC on March 22, you could actually listen to a mailbag show, and get the name of every country they mentioned there. That was followed by the beginning of the second hour of programming, and exactly on the hour. But that was a rare exception.
Punctuality isn’t one of the station’s great strengths, either. There are two hours of programming (and one, two or three blocks of them), but all of it is apparently pre-recorded, be it because of the time of the day when RHC goes on air for North America (and Europe, as it happens), be it for the need to get programs past a censor before airing. The most striking case in point was when Nelson Mandela died on December 5, 2013.
Listeners to RHC English didn’t get any news about it during the second half of the night, i. e. in the morning of December 6, but they did get the full monty during the morning of December 7 UTC.
The Shortwave Bulletin, in its April 13 edition, quotes BC-DX Top News as saying that on April 6, China Radio International had been heard on its Cuban AM relay „for the very first time since a lot of days“. To operate the transmitters successfully, or to find the one that works best, seems to be a challenge, and it would probably take some substantial Chinese investment to make the lame walk again.
RHC’s English website currently offers a stream in Spanish which seems to be rather up-to-date. I haven’t heard their Spanish program on 5040 kHz in a long time.
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#Africa #ChinaRadioInternational #Cuba #foreignRadio #RadioHavanaCuba #shortwave #USA
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