STATUS OF RADIO HAVANA CUBA AFTER MULTIPLE HURRICANES.
From David Crawford via HF Underground:
\Prior to hurricane Rafael, RHC was already down to two working txs in very poor condition, out of the five at Quivicán. In recent weeks they ran on 6000 and 15230 local mornings, quiet during the afternoon, and then evenings with RHC on 6000 plus one CRI relay frequency, 13650 for the useless fill music, or 9580 for SPA/ENG/CMN/YUE CRI programs.
Rumor has it that the CHICOMs are angry at La Habana for some reason right now, so they may have pulled their RadioCuba technical support, leading to the obvious RHC deterioration over the latter months.
The NE side of the Rafael cat 3 eyewall went right over the Quivicán area, and probably trashed the antennas. There is probably nobody to fix them, so I'll go out on a limb and predict that RHC shortwave won't be back.
All Bejucal RHC and Bauta RHC/HM01 frequencies were already inactive for months. 4765 Progreso disappeared at the same time as all of Bauta, which doesn't support the "traditional listing" of 4765 as Bejucal. That assumption was more driven by the historical use of 4765 by the Mayak relay, probably.
5025 continued to operate as reliably as possible in Cuba after the Bauta site failure. I suspect, since then, they might have been using a backup site to Bauta, but I don't know where that is. I caught a switchover from the Bauta primary 5025 tx to its backup, one time, several months ago, and the backup was of much better quality than the Bauta primary tx at the time. It could be a surviving pocket of Bejucal (such as the isolated tower on the NE corner, next to another comm tower probably used by the adjacent prison), but my gut says this is unlikely given the overall abandoned state of the site. The WRTH originally listed the 5025 site as La Julia, where there is a big tower, so that might be a possibility. Both possible sites were also within the storm high impact zone. Since the storm passage 5025 has likewise not been heard here, so this might all be academic now.
The MW freqs have been hit or miss since the storm. Radio Artemisa (770, 1000, 1020) and Radio Mayabeque (1040) have been missing since. Radio Guamá from Pinar (970 and 1070) were on for the duration of the storm and continue. The La Habana outlets have been up and down randomly since. 530 La Habana and Isla de la Juventud were both off during the storm, allowing the Rebelde 530 outlet listed at Guantánamo to weakly squeak through co-ch CHLO, which was the first reception of that here in a few years.
From David Crawford via HF Underground:
\Prior to hurricane Rafael, RHC was already down to two working txs in very poor condition, out of the five at Quivicán. In recent weeks they ran on 6000 and 15230 local mornings, quiet during the afternoon, and then evenings with RHC on 6000 plus one CRI relay frequency, 13650 for the useless fill music, or 9580 for SPA/ENG/CMN/YUE CRI programs.
Rumor has it that the CHICOMs are angry at La Habana for some reason right now, so they may have pulled their RadioCuba technical support, leading to the obvious RHC deterioration over the latter months.
The NE side of the Rafael cat 3 eyewall went right over the Quivicán area, and probably trashed the antennas. There is probably nobody to fix them, so I'll go out on a limb and predict that RHC shortwave won't be back.
All Bejucal RHC and Bauta RHC/HM01 frequencies were already inactive for months. 4765 Progreso disappeared at the same time as all of Bauta, which doesn't support the "traditional listing" of 4765 as Bejucal. That assumption was more driven by the historical use of 4765 by the Mayak relay, probably.
5025 continued to operate as reliably as possible in Cuba after the Bauta site failure. I suspect, since then, they might have been using a backup site to Bauta, but I don't know where that is. I caught a switchover from the Bauta primary 5025 tx to its backup, one time, several months ago, and the backup was of much better quality than the Bauta primary tx at the time. It could be a surviving pocket of Bejucal (such as the isolated tower on the NE corner, next to another comm tower probably used by the adjacent prison), but my gut says this is unlikely given the overall abandoned state of the site. The WRTH originally listed the 5025 site as La Julia, where there is a big tower, so that might be a possibility. Both possible sites were also within the storm high impact zone. Since the storm passage 5025 has likewise not been heard here, so this might all be academic now.
The MW freqs have been hit or miss since the storm. Radio Artemisa (770, 1000, 1020) and Radio Mayabeque (1040) have been missing since. Radio Guamá from Pinar (970 and 1070) were on for the duration of the storm and continue. The La Habana outlets have been up and down randomly since. 530 La Habana and Isla de la Juventud were both off during the storm, allowing the Rebelde 530 outlet listed at Guantánamo to weakly squeak through co-ch CHLO, which was the first reception of that here in a few years.