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Many thanks to a number of SWLing Post contributors who shared the following sad news from Radio Havana Cuba. I’m sure many of you have heard Rosario Lafita on the air and perhaps even corresponded with her as she also confirmed listener reports:
Dear listener:
With great regret, we inform you that journalist Rosario Lafita Fernández, died on the morning of April 4th last.
She was considered as an exemplary worker of Radio Havana Cuba for almost 40 years, the last 10 in charge of
the International Correspondence Department.
Her legacy, as an integral professional, will remain forever in our minds and hearts.
From this moment, we’ll continue the communicative work she directed with love and deep conviction that the most
important thing, for each member of this Department, is to maintain the personalized attention to each one of you.
SWLing Post community: perhaps you can help with an inquiry I recently received. Radio historian, Alejandra Bronfman, writes:
Dear Thomas;
I’m a historian of radio in the Caribbean, and David Goren suggested I contact you with a question about some 1959 broadcasts I’m trying to track down. These were produced by Haitian dissidents Daniel Fignolé and Louis Dejoie; one in Brooklyn, one in Havana, for broadcast over Havana’s Radio Progreso. They started in January 1959 and ended a few months later. I’m not sure whether they were in shortwave format, though I would guess that they were if they were aimed at Haiti as well as the eastern part of Cuba. I’m looking for any sources at all that might help me fill in the story, which I have mostly from some contemporary accounts, newspapers and US-based official sources.
Anyway, please excuse the intrusion and the out-of-the-blue nature of my query. I’m trying to hunt down all possible clues that may lead to more source material.
thanks so much;
Alejandra
Alejandra Bronfman
Associate Professor
Department of Latin American, Caribbean and US Latino Studies
If you have any information or leads that could help Professor Bronjman, please comment! Thank you!
I am writing this at 0400 UTC Sunday, September 10. Here in Okeechobee the winds are starting to pick up as Hurricane Irma heads to Florida.
The exact path of the hurricane continues to change somewhat, but it appears that the eye of Hurricane Irma will be passing a bit to the west of us, but we will still receive tropical storm force winds which are to the east-northeast of the storm. We will remain on the air with all of our transmitters as long as possible. However, once the winds get to a certain strength, our transmission lines will start flapping around and arching, which could cause serious damage to the transmitters and components. If that occurs, we will probably shut the transmitters down in order to avoid equipment damage until after the storm passes.
Our transmitter building itself is quite strong, and several members of our staff will be staying inside the building. But the hurricane could of course do damage to our antennas. We will hope for the best.
After the hurricane passes and winds die down, we would hope to be able to resume transmissions if we have electricity. However, realistically, we know that power outages generally occur in these situations, and they may last from hours to days or even weeks. We have a generator at our transmitter site, but it is designed to maintain our control room, lights and computers operational; it is not large enough to maintain our high-power transmitters on the air. So if the commercial power goes out, we will be off the air. We may be able to maintain one transmitter on the air at low power; this will likely be 9455 kHz, and this may not be possible until after the storm passes and the winds die down. If our Internet service remains functional, we should be able to maintain our live stream operational. This is the programming that is on 9955 kHz shortwave. You can hear it on our webpage, www.wrmi.net. Click on the audio player on the lower right side of our home page. You can also hear this stream on services such as TuneIn, Streema, Radio Garden, etc. (Just search for WRMI.)
We will try to keep everyone up to date on our status via our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/wrmiradio.
Thank you to everyone who has been contacting us with your thoughts and prayers. We look forward to being able to resume normal operations as soon as possible.
Best regards.
Jeff White
General Manager
WRMI Radio Miami International
10400 NW 240th Street
Okeechobee, Florida 34972 USA
Tel +1-305-559-9764
Fax +1-863-467-0185
www.wrmi.net
Many thanks to Jeff White for publishing this update.
I’m curious if anyone has been monitoring Radio Havana Cuba this morning. Rob Wagner posted the following update on Facebook yesterday morning as Cuba was getting battered by the full force of Irma:
Monitoring Cuba at 1110 UTC on Sept 9:
5025 CUBA. R. Rebelde – Bauta. At the height of Hurricane Irma, with a fat carrier and no audio from tune in at about 1000 UT till 1043 when suddenly audio came on. So perhaps power at the txer but not in the studio during that time. Appears to be all live crosses. The audio off again after 1105 till 1109. CNN says that Irma is right over Havana (north side of the island) right about now. So they are right in the thick of it.
If you have an update, please comment.
We’re wishing our many Florida, Georgia and SE US readers the very best as this particularly destructive storm passes over land. We hope our readers who have already been in the path of Irma have made it through safely.
Here at the SWLing Post HQ, in the mountains of western North Carolina, we’re expecting high winds and heavy rains even though the storm path has shifted further west. Much of this is due to our altitude which is relatively high for the region–near the ridge line. Sustained winds may be around 40 mph with gusts in excess based on the current forecast. These are wind speeds we can easily handle. Strong sustained winds and rain may persist until Thursday, however, which may mean power outages due to fallen trees. All in all, we feel very lucky.
Please feel free to share your hurricane report in the comments section.
Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Bob La Rose, who shares a QSL he received (see above and below) from Radio Havana Cuba after they had only been on the air a few days back in 1961.
Amazing, Bob! Thanks for taking the time to scan and share this report!
Also, many thanks to Arnie Coro, Host of Dxers Unlimited at Radio Havana Cuba, for sharing the full text/script from his May 1st 2016 anniversary edition of DXers Unlimited:
Radio Havana Cuba Dxers Unlimited Dxers Unlimited’s weekend edition for 1 May 2016 By Arnie Coro Radio amateur CO2KK
Hi amigos radioaficionados, welcome to the weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited, today l am happy to celebrate with you all the 55th Anniversary of Radio Havana Cuba… Yes amigos, it was on the first day of May of 1961, during the May Day celebrations when Cuba had just won the battle against the mercenary invasion that we went on the air using our present name Radio Havana Cuba… Two announcers, Orlando Castellanos and Fernando Alcorta announced to the world that Radio Havana Cuba, was on the air… Previously we had used the name Cuban Experimental Short Wave, but from May one of 1961, we are known worldwide as Radio Havana Cuba…
So today is a very special day… remembering those who have passed away after many years of valuable services to our station, like Pedro Costa the General Administration Manager, Carlos Estrada our Chief Engineer, and former Director Generals Marcos Behamaras. Orlando Fundora, Jose Antonio Caiñas and Alfredo Viñas. I also keep very nice memories of Angel Hernandez our bilingual announcer with the most effective voice for short wave radio that I can recall, and also I remember Manolo Ortega, reading our Spanish language editorials so that they could be heard clearly through his powerful voice…
Si amigos, I was there at the station 55 years ago as a young radio technician in charge of supervising the operations of our studios and transmitters that at that time included four Brown Boveri Swiss made short wave transmitters connected to a still under construction antennas farm, and the two studios borrowed from Radio Progreso until we could finish building our first studios .
The history of Radio Havana Cuba is full of very relevant moments, like the day that our Experimental Station announced to the world that the mercenary invasion that entered the Bay of Pigs had been defeated after sixty six hours of fierce combats .
With a lot of enthusiast and the impacting presence of a new generation of announcers, journalists , technicians, engineers and support personnel we are moving ahead to provide the best possible programming keeping our short wave transmitting facilities because we do believe on the use of international short wave broadcasting, while not disregarding the feeding of streaming audio to the Internet-
I am Arnie Coro, your host here at this special 55th Anniversary edition of Dxers Unlimited, that will continue in just a few seconds after a station ID..
Musical short cut
Yes amigos this is Radio Havana Cuba, using short wave frequencies at different times of the day on the 16, 19, 22, 25 ,31, 49 and 60 meters bands… and now our next radio hobby related item, a very popular section of this show under the name Antenna Topics , that is dedicated today , at the request of several listeners to a very effective Dxing antenna, low take off angle radiator, known as the HENTENNA, A great number of listeners from all around the world have written to me recently, asking to learn more about this Japanese antenna design , known as the HENTENNA, that seems to continue to be making headlines in radio publications around the world once again… But before telling you more about the mysterious HENTENNA…. A solar activity update… believe it or not, we are seen the solar flux moving up to very near 100 units for the first time in many weeks… following the typical ups and downs of the tail end of solar cycle 24… so propagation conditions have improved on the short wave bands …. Now back to the HENTENNA…
By the way, the first original report about the HENTENNA that went on the air here at Dxers Unlimited, dates back to 1999,more precisely, it went on the air the 12th of October of 1999, and according to my records, it then generated a lot of interest from our listeners, who were at that time, 1999, getting ready to enjoy the peak years of solar dream solar cycle 23 !!! >Never as powerful as super cycle 19, but nevertheless much better than the present very poor cycle 24.
So amigos here is at the request of Dxers Unlimited’s fans , a special Dxers Unlimited’s report on the HENTENNA, the Japanese elongated rectangular loop antenna with an easy match to coaxial cable feedlines of any impedance, be it 50, 60 ,75 or 93 ohms…or even 150 ohms !!! Of course that you can feed it with parallel transmission line of 300 to 450 ohms too, it is just a matter of minutes to find the perfect match for the feedline in use.
Let me start by saying that I recently built yet another HENTENNA for the FM broadcast band, and it is working nicely, having already picked up some Sporadic E skip DX stations from Mexico, the US and Puerto Rico during first few days of this year’s spring and summer E skip season.
Now you will have to learn something very unusual about the HENTENNA… the HENTENNA produces or receives VERTICALLY polarized waves when the antenna is placed horizontally; that is, with the long sides of the rectangular loop parallel to the ground. AND, if you want horizontal polarization, just flip the HENTENNA so that the long sides of the loop are vertical, and the short sides are parallel to the ground, something that is puzzling, but that’s the way it is amigos…
By the way, one of the world’s foremost antenna experts, Dr. L. B. Cebik, amateur radio operator W4RNL, did during his fruitful life an extensive analysis of elongated loops, and his findings are really fascinating. Dr. Cebik , now sorrily a silent key specialized in computer modeling of complex antenna systems, and his work with the HENTENNA and other similar elongated loops shows that the HENTENNA is a very good performer indeed.
In a few seconds, be ready to write down, the formulas for calculating HENTENNAS in the frequency range from 14 megaHertz all the way up to 220 megaHertz.
And now, as promised more about the japanese wonder antenna… the HENTENNA. Dr. Cebik’s computer modeling shows that the elongated loop HENTENNA has an edge over a regular square one wavelength loop and the regular elongated loop.
HENTENNAS for receiving FM broadcast signals are very easy to build, using a wooden or PVC pipe frame and copper wire. I built the one just mentioned cut for 100 megaHertz, using PVC insulated no. 12 wire, the one that is typically used for home wiring.
The loop was closed by soldering with a butane torch, and using regular solder with rosin core… The reason for using the butane torch is that no soldering iron at hand here could handle the heavy wire PLUS the high speed heat transfer of the copper wire.
The loop for the 100 megaHertz antenna is 1.5 meters on the long sides of the rectangle and 50 centimeters on the short sides. The feed point for the 50 ohm cable is was found to be located about 55 centimeters from one of the short sides of the loop.
The antenna is installed with the long sides in a vertical position; for receiving horizontally polarized FM broadcasts. I tried both 50 ohms and 75 ohms coaxial cables, and could not detect any difference on the weakest station that I am picking up here regularly with the FM band HENTENNA.
Again, now please pay extra attention …if you want to make of these elongated loops for receiving, here are the measurements to use: for the long sides of the rectangle 1/2 of a wavelength at the operating frequency, for the short side, the length is 1/6 of a wavelength… and the connection point for the coaxial cable of 50 ohms impedance is a little more than 1/6 of wavelength from one of the short sides of the rectangle, and it must be found experimentally by locating the point that provides the minimum standing wave ratio.
HENTENNAS can be built for any frequency between 10 megaHertz and 300 megaHertz by using heavy WIRE, and for the frequency range from about 50 megaHertz to 500 megaHertz you may try building HENTENNAS with copper or aluminum tubing.
Hope to have you all listening to my middle of the week edition of Dxers Unlimited amigos and do enjoy the improved short wave propagation conditions now in progress, especially after your local sunset.
Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Jake, who writes:
Just passing along this scan of an Associated Press story about the 5th anniversary of Radio Havana Cuba. It ran in The Virginian-Pilot on May 8, 1966.
Fun read considering so many of us have listened to the station over the years.
Keep up your good work!
Wow–as of May 2016, RHC has been on the air for 55 years. Thanks, Jake, for sharing this bit of radio history!
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Many thanks to a number of SWLing Post contributors who shared the following sad news from Radio Havana Cuba. I’m sure many of you have heard Rosario Lafita on the air and perhaps even corresponded with her as she also confirmed listener reports:
