Can You Hear 1180 Radio Marti?

[Gregg.]

I've heard Radio Marti while in South Florida before. It is government-owned, broadcasting news and commentary to Cuba in Spanish from studios in Miami. My Spanish is limited but when I've heard it, it sounds like a well-run professional operation, even if it is used for propaganda. It shares the 1180 frequency with WHAM Rochester NY, which was the original Class I-A station on that frequency and operates with 50 kw non-directional. (I wonder how a station in a relatively small upstate NY city got I-A status, while some much larger, more important cities didn't even get a Class I-B station, such as Houston, Miami, San Diego, Phoenix, Tampa or Kansas City?)

Radio Marti is very directional, using what we think is a 100,000 watt transmitter aimed directly south from Marathon in the Florida Keys. (I'm not sure the federal government has ever disclosed that Marti is powered at 100 kw.) Wikipedia says the Marti radio and TV operations employ 100 people and are funded at $15 million per year. Because it is not subject to FCC rules, Marti can run at 100 kw and it has no call letters. With the normalizing of relations with Cuba, it will be interesting to see whether funding for Radio Marti will continue.

Marti is audible around South Florida. But because it is so directional, it isn't that easy to get outside the Florida Keys. Just north of Miami, WAVS Davies operates day and night one channel away at 1170. I think I've seen others say they can get Radio Marti at night elsewhere in the South. But I don't think it's too easy to catch, with WHAM overpowering it in much of the Eastern U.S.

 

[davideduardo]

I've heard Radio Marti while in South Florida before.

When I lived in Kendall, I could hear it, but not particularly well. When I moved to a location right off 8th Street a little east of Krome Blvd, I could not get it all.

It is government-owned, broadcasting news and commentary to Cuba in Spanish from studios in Miami.

Technically, it is a "program" of the organization that operates the VOA, which has changed names several times over the years.

My Spanish is limited but when I've heard it, it sounds like a well-run professional operation, even if it is used for propaganda.

It's not really a propaganda operation. It is a "truth" broadcaster which has attempted to get complete news into Cuba over the last 30 years. I've had the pleasure of doing several projects for Radio Martí and there is a great group of people there, even though it does suffer from classic VOA and government bureaucracy.

It shares the 1180 frequency with WHAM Rochester NY, which was the original Class I-A station on that frequency and operates with 50 kw non-directional. (I wonder how a station in a relatively small upstate NY city got I-A status, while some much larger, more important cities didn't even get a Class I-B station, such as Houston, Miami, San Diego, Phoenix, Tampa or Kansas City?)

Many of those cities were relatively small when the clear channel stations were licensed.

Radio Marti is very directional, using what we think is a 100,000 watt transmitter aimed directly south from Marathon in the Florida Keys. (I'm not sure the federal government has ever disclosed that Marti is powered at 100 kw.)

The data that it is 100 kw is very widely recognized and known at Martí itself, and among a number of engineers who have worked at the site on the south side of Marathon.

With the normalizing of relations with Cuba, it will be interesting to see whether funding for Radio Marti will continue.

The fate of the operation will likely depend on whether it is a trade-off item in the ongoing normalization of relations with Cuba.

 

[dxho]

Marti is audible around South Florida. But because it is so directional, it isn't that easy to get outside the Florida Keys. Just north of Miami, WAVS Davies operates day and night one channel away at 1170. I think I've seen others say they can get Radio Marti at night elsewhere in the South. But I don't think it's too easy to catch, with WHAM overpowering it in much of the Eastern U.S.

Back-and-forth with WHAM in central Virginia. A minute ago, it was dominant.
Now it's in the background...

 

[pianoplayer88key]

dxho, I don't live in VA (although I have family & friends there and was there a few years ago), but are you sure that wouldn't be the Cuban station(s) on 1180 (that I think are trying to block Marti) you're hearing, if they in fact exist? (I can't remember...)

 

[davideduardo]

dxho, I don't live in VA (although I have family & friends there and was there a few years ago), but are you sure that wouldn't be the Cuban station(s) on 1180 (that I think are trying to block Marti) you're hearing, if they in fact exist? (I can't remember...)

Yes, in VA it is likely that the station being heard is the high power Cuban which blocks / jams Martí. Martí is a four tower end-fired array which puts a single lobe over Cuba and radiates, in theory, less than 100 watts to the east, north and west.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

O/T a bit, but I'd always been curious about those initial 50,000-watt 'clear' allocations, too, Gregg.
Salt Lake City makes sense, along with Denver and San Antonio, Los Angeles, Montreal, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, etc. These stations served big population spots.

But Fort Wayne and not Indianapolis?
And Schenectady but not Albany?
And Wheeling but not the more-central Charleston WV?

I can see why northern New England didn't get one. No one lives there. Yet the place got issued one of the biggest-signalled FM's in the country (WHOM 94.9).

Good question, Gregg.

 

[boombox4]

The only station I've heard on 1180 that has anything to do with Cuba is Radio Rebelde. It's audible here in the PNW several times a year. I've heard it barefoot on a Realistic TRF and even heard it on my Radio Shack Pocket Radio (although I had to // it with 5025 khz to ID it -- but it still shows you how well it comes in sometimes).

 

[schmave]

Yes, in VA it is likely that the station being heard is the high power Cuban which blocks / jams Martí. Martí is a four tower end-fired array which puts a single lobe over Cuba and radiates, in theory, less than 100 watts to the east, north and west.

This is the station I believe I heard on a trip to Panama City Beach, Fla., back in July 2004.
I do not speak of a lick of Spanish, so I can't tell you whether I heard Marti or the jammer. But based on my location and all the reports I've read here over the years from people who know a lot about radio, I have always figured it was the jammer. Whatever it was, the tower might as well have been two miles away. I remember it being that rock-solid during the day, certainly in the same class as WWL from down the coast.
I read in a post here back around that time that Radio Marti is so directional that you can be within sight of the tower and not hear the signal at all. Any time I have mentioned that, no one has corroborated or disputed it. I have never been to the Keys so that's purely a second-hand observation.
I don't remember checking 1180 at night. When I did DX, it was late and I was looking mostly for Texas and Midwestern stations as well as what came in loud on what I knew to be Mexican or South American stations.
Maybe a month after my PCB trip during a late-night walk here in central Ohio, I heard a Spanish-language broadcast fighting with WHAM. Again, I figured it was the jammer and not Marti.

 

[Icangelp]

O/T a bit, but I'd always been curious about those initial 50,000-watt 'clear' allocations, too, Gregg.
Salt Lake City makes sense, along with Denver and San Antonio, Los Angeles, Montreal, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, etc. These stations served big population spots.

But Fort Wayne and not Indianapolis?
And Schenectady but not Albany?
And Wheeling but not the more-central Charleston WV?

I can see why northern New England didn't get one. No one lives there. Yet the place got issued one of the biggest-signalled FM's in the country (WHOM 94.9).

Good question, Gregg.

Steve, I'm thinking Fort Wayne was never a true clear channel station. Hasn't it always been directional at night?

I'm also betting that politics and/or timing had something to do with at least some of the allocations. Edison probably had quite a bit of clout back in 1922, when he started WGY in "GE Town".

Also, it may have been "firstest with the mostest". WLW comes to mind.

 

[billmich]

Steve, I'm thinking Fort Wayne was never a true clear channel station. Hasn't it always been directional at night?

I'm also betting that politics and/or timing had something to do with at least some of the allocations. Edison probably had quite a bit of clout back in 1922, when he started WGY in "GE Town".

Also, it may have been "firstest with the mostest". WLW comes to mind.

Well,... are we calling the old "1-B's" clear channels? WOWO shared it's frequency with KEX in Portland.

As for 810, the Media market is "Albany/Schenectady/Troy"; it would be like complaining that Minneapolis got a clear channel, but St. Paul didn't

 

[Groove1670]

I had a friend who worked at a contract facility in the Keys back in the 80's (location undisclosed). They stored two portable studios at this location (allegedly for Marti).

They were weatherproof climate controlled shacks. I can't recall everything inside, but I remember seeing BE consoles, and Fidelipac/or BE microtrak cart machines. I wasn't familiar with broadcast equipment at the time.

The signal was so directional it had major nulls in Key West.

Cuba did their best to take out WQBA and WAQI (Then WNWS).

They never touched us in the Keys. WKIZ at 250 watts, and WKWF at 500 watts would of been no match. However we would get the occasional correspondence from Cuba.

I have a friend who came over from the Mariel boat lift who said it was very dangerous to listen to US broadcasts at the time. He said ABBA was one of the few groups played on Cuban Radio at the time, So they would tune in to WKIZ to hear Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, and other artists who were popular at the time.

Some times I wonder how many Cubans were listening to my airshift.

Later on when we switched the FM from B/EZ to AC we got reports of fans in Cuba also. With the format switch the station increased from 20000W@ 190FT. (approx) to 100000W at 615 FT.

When we built WPIK 102.5 FM, we were on the same tower in a middle of a landfill. I loathed going out there when there was a transmitter issue.

 

[Ai4i]

It is a "truth" broadcaster...

Are they not all "truth" broadcasters?
Do they not all broadcast "their" truths?
Does not every country have its own "Ministry of Truth"?
Is this just "my" truth?

 

[Gregg.]

While Marti is very directional, you can hear it in some parts of South Florida as David talks about. I could pick it up while in Miami and also in Key West, using my rental car's very good AM radio. My Spanish isn't that great but I can tell the difference between Marti and Cuban stations fairly quickly. When I was in Tampa on vacation in 2014, I couldn't pick it up. But I could hear some Cubans, even in the daytime, including the unmistakable Radio Reloj. (Its ticking time signal makes it identifiable, even if the speech isn't clear. I sometimes hear Reloj ticking in New Hampshire underneath 950 WROL Boston.)

Maybe I'll start a new thread about why did some small cities get I-A and I-B allocations, while some larger cities were left high and dry.

 

[Poledo]

If US relations with Cuba pan out, and Cuba stops trying to block US broadcast signals. Would any commercial or religious broadcasters start applying for new stations in the Keys aimed at Cuba? Would the FCC allow it (treaty stuff)?

 

[davideduardo]

If US relations with Cuba pan out, and Cuba stops trying to block US broadcast signals. Would any commercial or religious broadcasters start applying for new stations in the Keys aimed at Cuba? Would the FCC allow it (treaty stuff)?

Assuming there was an applications window, the only stations that could reach Cuba with a usable signal would be on AM.

FM is limited by the fact that nobody will put up a 2000 foot tower in the Keys for obvious reasons. The one hundred twenty-five miles to the urban center of Havana is beyond the usable limit of a Class C, even at that height.

Cuba has several hundred AM stations, many with higher power than the US permits. On the lower channels (below 1000 kHz) every channel has either a couple of large stations or a number of lower power operations. So there is nowhere on the dial that a Key West or lower Keys station might effectively target Cuba.

The other issue is "why" as there is no commercial model in the Western Hemisphere where stations not right on the border of two countries has been successful serving a somewhat distant audience. La Habana is 110 miles, and only part of it is on the coast where reception might be decent. Matanzas is about 120 miles, and at the base of a bay blocked by a peninsular land mass and is a smaller city.

 

[Poledo]

Would religious broadcasters want to try? Aren't there some Alaskan AMs shooting directional at Russia?

What about turning the situation around. Would Cuba have anything to gain by beaming a 250kw AM toward Florida with a "Tourist Info" format?

Back to the Radio Marti topic: Why didn't the US ever build a VOA station at the Guantanamo Bay Navy Base?

 

[Ai4i]

The Alaskan station is KICY.

Another good question might be, would the NARBA treaties be rejuvenated?
Some US stations would actually hurt from doing that.
WINZ, for example, would have to go back to having a daytime null to the south, directly into downtown Miami, and WAXY, WNMA, and WSUA might all lose some signal down that way.

I believe the treaty that granted Guantanamo to the US military in perpetuity (or for 99 years) forbad them from using it to "reach out" to the native population.
I know that commercial enterprises are only allowed to target personnel on the base.

 

[davideduardo]

Would religious broadcasters want to try? Aren't there some Alaskan AMs shooting directional at Russia?

Again, the point is moot as Cuba has major stations on any frequency suitable for trying to cover any part of Cuba from over 100 miles away.

While KICY can be heard in Russia, the area across the straits is very sparsely populated. And KICY is directional to the southwest, not at Siberia which is to the side of the pattern.

What about turning the situation around. Would Cuba have anything to gain by beaming a 250kw AM toward Florida with a "Tourist Info" format?

They did that with Radio Taino years ago, but with 300 kw. Even with that power, the coverage in Florida was not great; the objective was to reach more of the US at night. But with low AM usage at night, it would be rather useless.

Back to the Radio Marti topic: Why didn't the US ever build a VOA station at the Guantanamo Bay Navy Base?

As mentioned by Ai4i the treaty forbids it. Violating the treaty would allow Cuba to demand the surrender of the base.

At one point, there were plans to put a VOA facility in Puerto Rico, but as shortwave and international AM broadcasting became less relevant, that plan was dropped.

 

[cyberdad]

As for the OT.... I personally have never heard R. Marti at my location in Northern Illinois. WHAM has a good nighttime signal around here, but if you null it, you can usually hear a weak R. Rebelde. There is an 1180 local 20 miles or so to my southwest (WSQR). But they only run one watt at night, so as you might expect, they're invisible here. I've never heard them here at night, save for one occasion when they apparently "forgot" to power down from their daytime 900 watts (ND).

I've also driven by the WSQR stick at night. They're usable for about 2-3 miles, audible for a mile or so beyond that. A gnat among two giants!

 

[Poledo]

They did that with Radio Taino years ago, but with 300 kw. Even with that power, the coverage in Florida was not great; the objective was to reach more of the US at night. But with low AM usage at night, it would be rather useless.

Google is a little lite on English information concerning Radio Taino. I gather that Cuba launched the station in 1985 on the same frequency as Radio Marti with the main purpose to jam Radio Marti in Cuba.
The US sent 100kw south and Cuba responded with 300kw to the north?

How many listeners does Radio Marti believe they have in Cuba? Has Radio Marti become a waste of taxpayer dollars?