The Communist dictatorship running Cuba is interfering with the broadcast signal of US government radio station Radio Marti 24 hours a day, leaving some listeners feeling their radios could break from the vibrations.
The practice, known as “jamming,” applies noise and distortion to a broadcast frequency that makes it impossible to listen to the transmission. Listeners report that the only thing allowed to air are major-league baseball games from America.
“If it’s broadcasting news or hot commentary, it’s impossible to receive the signal,” reports one listener inside Cuba. “It’s as if the radio is going to break because of the vibrations.”
The increased jamming comes at a time when Barack Obama is looking to open relations with the Castro regime by lessing travel and other restrictions. The Obama Administration is getting a fresh chance to examine the Bush Administration’s hard-core plan to beam Radio Marti and TV Marti to those on the island.
Some American radio operators in the Southeast have long coped with a related problem – the illegal high-power broadcasts originating from Cuba on their own licensed frequencies. The FCC has allowed them to compensate by cranking up the wattage, but it’s not a great solution.
Related posts:
Just think of it as DRM.
It’s not just Radio Marti; Cuba will also periodically try to jam other Florida area radio stations. The jammer makes a pretty distinctive sound.
Here’s a sample. Hams and SWLs have called it the ‘Havana Gurgler’.
http://stude1c.fiu.edu/dumpbox/Havana%20Gurgler%20-%20kHz%2012060.mp3
It doesn’t do a particularly great job of being a jammer, and the transmitter really sucks — harmonics are radiated, so a jammer on, say, 1500kc, also shows up on 3000kc, 4500kc, 6000kc… eww.
i wish more people in this country understood the way that the people of Cuba have been and continue to be imprisioned by the crime family in control of that island.
the leftist media refuses to expose the real Cuba. it’s up to sites like this to bring the truth into the conciousness of the American public. DON’T ALLOW OBAMA TO DEAL WITH A COMMUNIST CUBA!!
We need to get those people who support us – out of Cuba – and then
go in there and liberate Cuba. How a little island 90 miles from Miami could unseat a democratic and US-supportive government in 59′ and then proceed to evade our efforts to democratize it through a 50 year economic blockade and attempted invasions- is beyond my understanding. You mean we cannot do away with a small band of cigar-smoking, garlic-smelling lefties? Even their entire population – who hates them- has put up with this for half a century. Let’s end this.
All their people really want is cable, an F-150, a six-pack of Bud and Wendys. It’s time. Obama, if you love Communism so much, why don’t you do what has to be done?!
You righties have had us as the world’s bully. Then the laughingstock. Now they either want us all to die, or they just move on without us. Fuck you all, y’all.
Be aware of Cuba – Crime is everywhre!