Cuban Government Jamming 40 meter US HAM BAND

It's been forty years since I could identify a Cuban station by 'sound" before even sending his callsign.

'Yoopty yoop yoop. Yoop yoopty yoop". "CQ"
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They all seem to have modern, stable rigs now.

p.s. I don't believe the DGI intelligence service is spending much time on the ham bands giving us disinformation about what kind of rigs they are using. shakes head.

 

Back in 2016 I posted about signals on the low end of 40 meters that sounded much like the "Russian woodpecker" pulses heard a number of years prior to 2016. Now a new, similar noise is showing up. Its over 80 khz wide. This is at about 8:30 pst 1630 utc here north of Seattle wa. Its intermittent, and not likely local; as I can see it on web sdr at kfs. Its about 10 over s9 here and makes a mess of the cw portion of 40 meters. Its not a sharp pulse, more of a softened sound, but destructive. My guess is its coming from China. Its now time to put up a directive array with a strong front to back ratio, pointed east. Oh, well. Gives a good excuse to experiment with wire beams here. .... ..

 

Read the threads about Cuban jamming. That's probably what you are hearing.

 

Region 1 has the best monitoring reports of intruders and signals of interest. Great for general shortwave listening as well.

IARU Region 1 Monitor (intruder report) Monthly Archive
https://www.iaru-r1.org/spectrum/monitoring-system/iarums-r1-newsletters/

June Newsletter
https://www.iaru-r1.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IARUMS-Newsletter-06-2021.pdf

 

- Homebuilt doesn't mean going back to 1940s rigs. I've built a number of CW rigs, and a CW/SSB rig with an analog VFO. The CW note is clean and the frequency is stable. Not, not quite as stable as a crystal - but 10 Hz an hour, and not the 100 Hz that my TS-530 dances around.
- I have heard a CO ham supposedly from Havana intentionally use his voice and recorded music to block QSOs between Cuban and American ops. It doesn't matter if that person is formally part of the government or not - when they're performing the same function it's a distinction without a difference.

 

On the topic of who might or might not be building what, I think it's important to remember that there are no Radio Shack stores in Cuba. No HRO or Gigaparts. I started to cut elements for a 2M and 70 cm yagi yesterday and saw something that I had overlooked in earlier readings of the instructions.
https://www.wa5vjb.com/yagi-pdf/cheapyagi.pdf

Considering that raw materials are difficult to source, and that doctors and lawyers bring home less money each month than I brought home in a week as a kid with a lawn mower, I have a lot of respect for the ops in Cuba that are on the air with homebuilt rigs and homebuilt antennas.

In spite of the side conversations about who is or isn't building, or who is or isn't using their gear to jam, we still have a significant problem on 40. I only saw seven jamming signals on 40 overnight, yet nets are still changing frequencies so their members can be heard. More nets and operators are being crammed into a smaller space and last night I heard two arguments where people were fighting over space. It's getting worse, not better. Keep complaining to the ARRL and IARU, folks.

73

 

What a waste of time at this point.

 

You think reporting intruders on our bands to the people that regulate those bands is a waste of time, yet suggest calling ANY senator from ANY party is somehow useful? I truly hope you can appreciate the irony.

I find this to be a useful reminder from time to time. Maybe you'll find it useful as well.

 

This isn't a place to attack others, and politics is specifically forbidden. Stand down, "ITAL7".

 

MY Point is that the ARRL, ITU, FCC, CIA, NTIA, NSA, DOD, ArInc/ and others already know about this and have for the past few weeks. Many of us reported it then.

73 from,
The K0UO " Rhombic Antenna Farm" 2 miles of wire in the Air & On the daily

 

73

 

I'd like to commend you for all that you are doing to bring awareness to the jamming and for the links you have provided on how to report this to the ARRL and the IARU. Thanks to your links I've shown some local hams how to report the interference on the 40 meter band and they have done so.

And as someone who will be an amateur radio operator soon, I was very pleased to see your QRZ page and applaud your experimentation with vintage equipment and for being the embodiment of the spirit of ham radio. Rock on!

 

It was hard to verify that anyone reported anything when the head of IARU Region 2 told the ARRL that there were no complaints to IARU Region 2 as of the 20th of July. When I asked a number of times here if anyone has been reporting the jamming I got exactly zero responses.

Only one of the groups you listed has a monitoring and intrusion protocol for our amateur bands. They're specifically listed as our point of contact for the IARU monitoring program. I'd be very surprised to learn that any of the other orgs care one whit about this. Since we know that the jamming's not coming from inside the US or one of her territories, I'd be surprised that the FCC has a dog in this fight. That's why the only agencies I'm continuing to push on are the ARRL and IARU (and hoping they'll push up to the ITU). I may be wrong tho - so if you or anyone else is able to fill in the gaps, please do. Thanks in advance.

 

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.

Please report the 40Meter Jamming here: https://www.iarums-r2.org/report-form.pdf

 

Any hams that want to complain about the jamming are welcome to send a quick email to the ARRL at: hq@arrl.org and w6rod@arrl.org and to the IARU Region 2 Monitoring Program at:iarums@iaru-r2.org and xe1kk@xe1kk.net[/QUOTE]