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Radio Havana missing on all frequencies

secondchoice said:
I believe there is a treaty involved. The US usually tries to honor it's commitments. IIRC Cuba didn't sign or just ignores the "allotments" that created the US, Mexico, Canadian (etc) clear channels at night. I forget the name(s) of the treaty and when it went into affect. There are some folks that believe a treaty can over override the US Constitution in Court. That's why they have to be approved by the Senate with at least 67 votes
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I contacted Arnie once and he went on a screed against the HFCC, the ITU and others about frequency coordination, etc Cuba ignores and doesnt care. Thats why multiple Florida stations have had or did have long running STAs to run day power at night, etc

(A San FRancisco station had an STA because of a MExican station and ran day power and pattern at night)
 
secondchoice said:
I believe there is a treaty involved. The US usually tries to honor it's commitments. IIRC Cuba didn't sign or just ignores the "allotments" that created the US, Mexico, Canadian (etc) clear channels at night. I forget the name(s) of the treaty and when it went into affect. There are some folks that believe a treaty can over override the US Constitution in Court. That's why they have to be approved by the Senate with at least 67 votes
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NARBA is the treaty. That was most deeply felt in the 1941 reassignment of most AMs in the US, and included Cuba, Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Canada and, IIRC (I could actually look it up) Jamaica.

I looked: North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement - Wikipedia
 
secondchoice said:
It would have been a good time to be a crystal manufacturer. Just about everyone above 730 had to move
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And, of course, all those antennas needed to be retuned. In the era before Operating Impedance Bridges existed, it took a bunch of gear including a signal generator to tune a tower to the feeding line or coax.

Many transmitters, even back when they were all using rather tolerant vacuum tubes, did not like moving even 10 kilocycles up or down, let alone 30 to 40 that some had to do.

I did DX tests on my HCRM in Quito, going from 570 to 575 to create an "open DX channel" and even that slight change made the tubes glow a lot redder than normal. Imagine much wider shifts!
 
DavidEduardo said:
And, of course, all those antennas needed to be retuned. In the era before Operating Impedance Bridges existed, it took a bunch of gear including a signal generator to tune a tower to the feeding line or coax.

Many transmitters, even back when they were all using rather tolerant vacuum tubes, did not like moving even 10 kilocycles up or down, let alone 30 to 40 that some had to do.

I did DX tests on my HCRM in Quito, going from 570 to 575 to create an "open DX channel" and even that slight change made the tubes glow a lot redder than normal. Imagine much wider shifts!
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Have you ever seen a tube overheat and explode?
 
radiofan2023 said:
Have you ever seen a tube overheat and explode?
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I have seen a glass-enclosure tube melt and implode. They are vacuum tubes, so the force would be inwards to fill that vacuum. There's nothing in a tube that normally explodes.

An implosion is rare, too. Usually caused by lack of a cooling system or failure of one, the components (filament, plate, screen, etc., will soften and make contact with each other and short the circuit out; most transmitters at that point will shut down. And most have a fan sensor that will immediately kill the plate voltage if there is no air current.
 
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That all important relay of under modulated CGTN in Mandarin via Cuba to the east coast of North America is back on 9790

6000 is humming away with no modulation.. but that was a problem long before the power failure
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
That all important relay of under modulated CGTN in Mandarin via Cuba to the east coast of North America is back on 9790

6000 is humming away with no modulation.. but that was a problem long before the power failure
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15230 just woke up, doing its best R Cairo imitation of distorted and and under modulated male vocals. 915 EDT.
 
CTListener said:
And just like that, I'm 15 years old again, it's 1970, and I'm listening to 9475 in my bedroom! Funny how frequencies get lodged in SWL memories for decades. Now, to look for Israel on 9009 for the other side of the story.
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I think Israel is sending something besides SW broadcasts into the skies these days :(
 
CTListener said:
And just like that, I'm 15 years old again, it's 1970, and I'm listening to 9475 in my bedroom! Funny how frequencies get lodged in SWL memories for decades. Now, to look for Israel on 9009 for the other side of the story.
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I think it's funny and highway robbery anytime I hear something besides Radio Australia on 9580 in the morning.
 
the mandarin service of CRI on 9790 is on from Cuba.... modulation has been suffering more than usual. the CRi, er CGTN broadcasts from cuba are usually at least listenable.
 
CTListener said:
And just like that, I'm 15 years old again, it's 1970, and I'm listening to 9475 in my bedroom! Funny how frequencies get lodged in SWL memories for decades.
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I recall Radio Cairo on 9475 in those days as well. Difference: the modulation was actually very good.

Prior to the “Six-Day War” in 1967 many of the RC English language announcers had British accents. After that conflict those disappeared.

Seems the audio output of Radio Cairo started to deteriorate in the latter days of the Anwar Sadat regime, and has gone down the drain in the decades since. When Gamal Abdel Nasser was running the old U.A.R. the station’s technical quality was quite good. I suspect Nasser’s Pan-Arabist political philosophy made having a decent international radio voice a priority.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
I recall Radio Cairo on 9475 in those days as well. Difference: the modulation was actually very good.

Prior to the “Six-Day War” in 1967 many of the RC English language announcers had British accents. After that conflict those disappeared.

Seems the audio output of Radio Cairo started to deteriorate in the latter days of the Anwar Sadat regime, and has gone down the drain in the decades since. When Gamal Abdel Nasser was running the old U.A.R. the station’s technical quality was quite good. I suspect Nasser’s Pan-Arabist political philosophy made having a decent international radio voice a priority.
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Cairo is an even bigger waste on SW than Iran or Cuba... and that says something.

Irans SW stuff has never modulated well in the decade ive been listneing, BUT.. the audio is at least clear enough to understand. Cuba is hit or miss.

Cairo.. Cairo is disgusting. One day it sounded like aliens were taking over as the transmitter melted down before my ears on their russian* service.

The english* service is distorted** and undermodulated**

The italian* and russian* services are usually about the same as english


*= that info is presumed because thats the language listed on eibi when i look it up but its such garbage i cant even make out the language

**=how can it be distorted and under modulated at the same time? well it is!
 
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