I figured they ran 25 watts or less and had to build their rigs from scratch using what parts were on hand, most likely discarded tube type BC receivers. Haven't heard them for the last year or two.
Tubes are *very* scarce in Cuba, and any BC receivers using same have, in my experience, had all of their tubes die of low emission. There is a fairly active solid-state homebrewing community amongst the hams in Cuba, however. They might have also been using surplus military equipment. I saw a complete ART-13 in an antique shop in Havana but they wanted $500 or so, IIRC, for it.
Most of the guys you heard probably got locked up by Castro for talking to the imperialists :ctf:
73 John