Camagüey, a city with a vast radio tradition, began its radio history on January 16th, 1924; when the first professional station outside Havana went on the air.

Located in the Plaza Hotel, the 7AZ had a studio, staff, and a stable list of programs. Although there were other radio plants outside the capital, none possessed these characteristics. The station kept that name until 1929, because from the following year it was approved in the International Radio Convention, that Cuba would be assigned the letters C and M as an indicative for medium wave stations; the third letter would depend on the province and the fourth would be decided by the owner as long as there was not one registered with that name.

This is how from 1930 the 7AZ was registered in the Official documents of the Secretariat of Communications as the CMJA, owned by Rafael Valdés Jiménez and maintained its signal until 1962.

Later the radio magic spread in the province and other stations emerged such as CMJE, CMJG “La Voz de la Vigía”, CMJK “La voz del camagüeyano”, which had mostly a programming loaded with commercial announcements and advertisements, something characteristic of Cuban radio after the 1930s and until the beginning of the Revolution.

In the 1950s, some stations joined the revolutionary ideals that were on the rise. This is what happened in the old Radio Suaritos, which changed ownership in 1951 and began to be called Radio Camagüey; station that, thanks to the cleverness of José Manuel Bueno, transmitted a pet talk to participate in the General Strike of April 9th, 1958.

In 1957 Radio Cadena Agramonte was founded, the current provincial station of the territory and since then preferred by the Camagüey public.

This is how the city of Camagüey begins to write its name in the history of Cuban radio, a story that began a little earlier in Havana when Luis Casas Romero, a son of El Mayor’s land, founded the first radio station in Cuba.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García