Ever since 670 got the rights to the Cubs games, I've heard Spanish almost covering up the 670 signal at night from down here in Tennessee. I found out that it's Radio Rebelde out of Cuba. I have heard them on 5025 khz on my shortwave radio, but I wish they'd get out of AM. I want to hear my Cubs, not some halfway decent music and one-sided news...
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I take it that people in Cuba are not Cubs fans...
- Thread starter RFCCRadioAudio
- Start date
Move farther north or switch to the White Sox on 890.
The latter is better.
Or you could spend the $20 and get MLB Gameday Audio. No Cuban interference there.
I used to know a guy who was a Catholic Priest stationed as an Air Force chaplain in Huntsville, AL. He was (and still is) an avid Chicago sports fan....particularly White Sox. When he would go on leave, he'd do the drive back home to the south side of Chicago as an "overnighter". He told me that his favorite station, WSCR, was listenable at night once he got past Nashville on I-65. South of there, Cuba was the issue that made "The Score" unlistenable. Which completely bugged him.
Looking at the Miami dial there is a 670 that has 50K watts that easily reaches Havana in the daytime but drops to 1000 watts at night and is directional toward the Bahamas. My guess is that Cuba blasts Radio Rebelde at 670 to counter WWFE out of Miami much the same way they have the jamming array along the coast to counter WAQI 710.
WWFE was never allowed to make landfall in Cuba when it had virulent anti-Castro programming. In any case, it has a null towards central and eastern Cuba, and the lobe that aims right at La Habana is blocked by 670 where there are somewhere between 12 and 14 stations operating across Cuban including a 50 kw one in La Habana.
WAQI was never jammed in the truest sense of the world... it was blocked by a string of local stations with regular programming, but not jammed with noise in the Russian or Chinese fashion.
WQBA was blocked by an off frequency carrier which caused a heterodyne, making listening unpleasant in the area of Cuba where it could be heard. 1180 was blocked by Radio Taíno and its variants using a 300 kw transmitter. At one point, there were as many as 30 different Radio Rebelde transmitters on the channel across the 450 mile width of Cuba.
And when WAQI moves its site and reduces night power to 6,300 watts, the Rebeldes will eat them alive even in parts of Metro-Dade.
Trust me, I will check in on the Sox from time to time (I want to see an all Chicago World Series before I "sign off for good"), but I'll just have to turn my Grundig one way or the other to hear Pat and not Rebelde (unless they get the Spanish rights to Cubs baseball)
Originally posted by DavidEduardo: "And when WAQI moves its site and reduces night power to 6,300 watts, the Rebeldes will eat them alive even in parts of Metro-Dade."
David, I'm sure you are correct that even in part of Metro-Dade, WAQI will be unlistenable at night and even though radio-locator maps shows a strong signal in Hollywood and Hallendale (on paper anyway)...... I'm sure that even in extreme south Broward nighttime listening OTA to 710 will be a challenge. Do you know if WAQI has plans for translators? ....with WAQI's older demographics, I doubt many of their listeners will be listening on their smartphones. (could be wrong)
I'm thinking they will need 2 or 3 250 watt translators to completely blanket the populated areas of Miami Dade and south Broward.
David, I'm sure you are correct that even in part of Metro-Dade, WAQI will be unlistenable at night and even though radio-locator maps shows a strong signal in Hollywood and Hallendale (on paper anyway)...... I'm sure that even in extreme south Broward nighttime listening OTA to 710 will be a challenge. Do you know if WAQI has plans for translators? ....with WAQI's older demographics, I doubt many of their listeners will be listening on their smartphones. (could be wrong)
I'm thinking they will need 2 or 3 250 watt translators to completely blanket the populated areas of Miami Dade and south Broward.
Why is WAQI reducing their night power?
They have to move the transmitter site and will colocate with WQBA out at Krome Ave and the Trail. To make the night operation work with the existing towers, a power reduction was required.
That red radio-locator red contour is apparently the 5 mV/m, and the level of interference from the combined 710 Cuban stations is in excess of 10 mV/m... so big parts of Dade will have regualar issues. In particular the northwestern part of the populated areas will be poor... meaning the areas to the west of Hialeah along the 75.
K
kf4rca
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Surprised Cuba puts so much into broadcasting due to the situation they have with electric power generation. They use mainly fossil fuel which has to be imported. The Russians never did complete the nuclear plant for them. So electricity is not cheap for them.
They are the classic-model socialist country, where control of information is a fundamental function of government.
At one point, they were just as concerned about the listening to the coastal Venezuelan and Colombian stations which had high power and lots of international news and which were receivable with ease everywhere at night and even in the daytime along the southern coast of Cuba unless Cuba populated every frequency with local stations.
You'll find a "Ministry of Information" in such decidedly non-socialist countries as Saudi Arabia, too. Government control of information is more a hallmark of nations that concentrate power in one political party or in an omnipotent hereditary monarch. Socialism is no prerequisite.
I get that, having lived in countries where such totalitarian regimes or systems were in place. I was just suggesting that Cuba followed the socialist model of Cold War Russia and China, not of the quasi-socialist nations such as those of Scandinavia. In fact, Fidel Castro's Cuba most resembled Hoxa's Albania!
I developed quite a hatred for the Cuban 670 growing up in central Ohio in the early to mid-1990s. Many nights, I could not listen to Bulls games because of that station. I don't remember hearing it much before 1992 or 1993, but man, when the conditions were right, it blanketed 670 to the point that you couldn't even hear WMAQ by turning your radio. It was that strong, and in that pre-Internet age, it was very frustrating.
I still hear it from time to time nowadays here in Ohio, but never with the punch it used to have. Most nights I can hear WSCR quite well. The later, the better.
I still hear it from time to time nowadays here in Ohio, but never with the punch it used to have. Most nights I can hear WSCR quite well. The later, the better.
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