Beginning in July 2021, the people of Cuba began widespread protests against the poverty, hunger and lack of medical care in Cuba. As these demonstrations grew, and the government there began to abuse their subjects more and more, the US media turned it’s eye away and buried the story.

Those in the HAM community were not willing to let this story die, and a special world-wide awareness event with special callsign W4C was activated on 19-JUL-2021.

Over the weeks the followed the start of the events, we communicated; we shared information with family and friends, and posted updates to social media, in hopes it would educate before the powers that be silenced our outcry for the oppressed in Cuba.

Living hear the Gulf of Mexico, the jamming from Cuba was impacting 40m communications around the Gulf, and not just for Americans and Cubans (the communication they were arguably attempting to interfere with), other countries reported problems, and even one country, Venezuela, joined the Cubans with their own jamming of some marine traffic frequencies.

Breaking Through on Digital

Despite the onslaught of noise from the Communist jamming stations, subjects of Cuba were still succeeding in communicating with people in America using digital modes, such as FT8. I myself a number of short contacts with Cubans during the height of the jamming, and shared messages of support during the contact, just so they would know that their please are not going unheard in the rest of the world.

Here are a few from my QRZ logbook:

Background on the Crisis:

https://havanatimes.org/opinion/cuba-before-and-after-the-july-11-protests

Cuba’s Active Jamming of Amatuer Bands:

In early July, Cuba began jamming 40m bands in the Gulf of Mexico. This is one of the first videos I saw when I became aware of what was happening.

One of favorite YT’ers covered it a few days later.