Ch 16 interference

[Ded reckoner]

Leaving the Bahamian Southern Islands and coming into Turks & Caicos Islands and now along the whole of the northern coast of the Dominican Republic, there is Ch 16 interference. The interference consists of period transmissions of high power pulses of white noise. This phenomenon has been discussed on Facebook and corroborated by other cruisers along this path and DR marinas. Despite lots of speculation and some interesting conspiracy theories, no one seems to know the source. Does anyone in this forum know?

[SailingHarmonie]

It was real when we transited the area two months ago. I had no theories, and I haven't seen any that make sense to me. It made keeping a decent radio watch virtually impossible.

[Off Trail]

This has been ongoing for over a year. My guess is that it's a faulty repeater somewhere in DR. Surprising it's been going on for so long.

[JPA Cate]

Intermittents are hard to chase down. Time consuming. Probably isn't a local priority. Difficult terrain could be part of the problem. Y'all need someone radio-competent to repair or replace, if it's a repeater. Maybe a couple of CF'ers who qualify could make a gift of their expertise? (Jim has helped with a lot of radios over the years.)

Ann

[SailingHarmonie]

This continues. We first experienced it 2 years ago while transiting close to the north coast of Hispaniola. We are right now sailing east about150 miles from the island, and the transmissions are loud and powerful.

Busts come in random groups, each bust s from !/2 to 5 seconds. It doesn’t sound like pure white noise, but a distinct buzz overlaid with staic

[Shrew]

The piezo alarm for my fireboy helm control for the fireboy engine suppression system picks-up frequency saturation from the AM radio antennae beside my marina.

It could be anything.

[deblen]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN-c5DQFuhI&t=61s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbHkgyLnoOw

Use a hand held VHF marine radio



Cheers/Len

[SailingHarmonie]

Originally Posted by deblen

Use a hand held VHF marine radio



Cheers/Len

Cute. But I’m 150 miles from land…

Just to be clear this affects nothing, as far as I can tell, except VHF16. It seems to be coming from the DR or Haiti. It has been going on for years now.

I’m not blaming aliens, the CIA, or some organization with lots of black helicopters. I just have not heard, and can’t think of, an explanation that makes sense to me.

[Jammer]

Probably a broken repeater or remote communications facility operated by the government in one of those countries.


Maintaining a VHF radio network on land is difficult and expensive. The USCG spent a fortune on Rescue 21 and spends a somewhat smaller fortune every year to maintain it. Haiti, for example, doesn't have that kind of money.