Radio Martí: the US station for Cuba on 7335 kHz, and the jamming

What you hear

Radio Martí is a Spanish-language news and talk station, and on 7335 kHz it runs around the clock: news bulletins about Cuba and the Cuban diaspora, interviews, commentary critical of the government in Havana, phone-ins, sport and Cuban music. The identification is "Radio Martí" with a short jingle, and the whole thing is produced in Miami for an audience ninety miles away across the Florida Straits.

What makes the frequency special is what is laid on top of it. Cuba has jammed Radio Martí since the day it started, and from a receiver anywhere near the island you hear the programme fighting a rough, bubbling, grinding noise, sometimes with a second carrier wobbling about on the channel. The jamming is aimed at Cuban listeners, so its transmitters are local: a receiver in Florida hears both sides of the fight, a receiver in Europe often hears Radio Martí clean, and a receiver in the Caribbean may hear mostly the jammer. Tuning the same station from three places and getting three different sounds is a small lesson in how shortwave works.

Who transmits and why

The station belongs to the Office of Cuba Broadcasting in Miami, part of the US government's international broadcasting agency. It went on the air in 1985, named after José Martí, the nineteenth-century writer and independence hero claimed by Cubans on both sides of the divide. The shortwave transmitters are at the Greenville, North Carolina site that also carries the Voice of America. The purpose is openly political: to give Cubans news their own state media do not carry. Cuba's answer, jamming, is equally open. The 2025 cuts to US international broadcasting hit this station too; it fell silent for a few days in March 2025 and came back, and its budget has been argued over since.

7335 kHz is the frequency in this catalogue; the station has also used 6030 kHz, which is often the better channel at night.

When and where to listen

7335 kHz lies in the 41 metre band, which from North Carolina reaches Cuba at all hours and reaches Europe after dark. For European listeners the station is a night-time catch, roughly from 22:00 UTC until the band closes after sunrise, strongest in the small hours and towards dawn. By day in Europe the channel is empty or occupied by someone else. For the full experience with the jamming, choose a receiver in Florida or elsewhere in the south-eastern United States; for the cleanest programme audio, a receiver on the US east coast further north or in western Europe.

The catalogue mode is AM. When the jammer is strong, switching to upper or lower sideband and picking the quieter side of the carrier makes the speech easier to follow; the noise is wideband, but a narrow filter helps.

In ShackDeck

Find it under Station catalogue → Shortwave broadcast → Radio Martí. ShackDeck chooses a public receiver whose range covers 7335 kHz, tunes it and sets AM from the catalogue, so you need no receiver, antenna or account of your own. If the waterfall shows a broad, smeared blob rather than a clean stripe, you are looking at the jamming; ask the program for the next receiver and compare.