Border blaster

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the band, see The Border Blasters.
"X station" redirects here. For the
X-Station
.

A border blaster is a broadcast station that, though not licensed as an

Radio Free Europe, targeting European countries behind the Iron Curtain
.

With broadcasting signals far more powerful than those of U.S. stations, the Mexican border blasters could be heard over large areas of the U.S. from the 1940s to the 1970s, often to the great irritation of American radio stations, whose signals could be overpowered by their Mexican counterparts. These are also sometimes referred to as X stations for their

call letters
: Mexico assigns callsigns beginning with XE or XH to broadcast stations.

On November 9, 1972, in Washington, D.C., the United States and Mexico signed an "Agreement Concerning Frequency Modulation Broadcasting in the 87.5 to 108 MHz Band". Since then, in the

Secretariat of Communications and Transportation using transmitters with an effective radiated power
similar to those of major licensed commercial stations located within the U.S.

Background

In contrast to pirate radio stations which broadcast illegally, border blasters are generally licensed by the government upon whose soil they are located. Pirate radio stations are freebooters from offshore, outside the territorial waters of the nation they target, or ones that are illegally operating in defiance of national law within its sovereign territory. They also contrast with shortwave radio broadcasters, which operate on frequencies expressly designated for international broadcasts, whereas border blasters use frequencies designated for domestic broadcasts.

Mexico to U.S.

In Mexico and the US, while the federal government of the US did not particularly like them, the stations were allowed to flourish. W. Lee O'Daniel used a border blaster in his successful campaign for governor of Texas.[1] The US, unlike the UK, has never required a license to listen to broadcast radio or television. The only restriction placed upon border-blasters was a law which prohibited studios in the US from linking by telephone to border-blaster transmitters in Mexico. This law, part of the Brinkley Act, was introduced in the wake of John R. Brinkley's fraudulent medical advice program on XERA. The Brinkley Act remains on the books in the US, but licenses under that act are now routinely granted as long as the station follows applicable US and Mexican regulations.

The

pop culture inspired by the border blaster stations is extensive: the 1971 Doors song "The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)", ZZ Top's song "Heard It on the X" (1975), "The Wolfman of Del Rio" by Terry Allen on his 1979 album Lubbock (On Everything), 1983's "Mexican Radio" by Wall of Voodoo, and 1987's "Border Radio" movie theme by The Blasters.[2]

Europe

A similar situation developed in Europe, beginning with

Radio Luxembourg from Luxembourg, Radio Andorre and Sud Radio from Andorra, Radio Monte Carlo from Monaco, and Europe 1 from Saarland, Germany
, to begin legally broadcasting signals across international borders.

The British government created countermeasures after World War II: the state-owned telephone monopoly prevented studios in Britain from linking by telephone to the transmitters of Radio Luxembourg. These restrictions were mostly lifted following the privatisation and demonopolisation of the UK telephone system.

Northern U.S. and Canada

Signals of many US and Canada radio stations (and to a lesser extent television outlets) encroach on neighboring territory. Such stations are usually not deemed "border blasters," as their programming is not primarily targeted at listeners and viewers across the border. US and Canadian stations adhere to comparable maximum power levels, and the encroachment is regarded as unintentional and largely unavoidable. However, in areas where a US radio station is close to a significantly larger Canadian metropolitan area (or vice versa), true border blasters do exist.

An exception to that general rule is

Tsawwassen, British Columbia, because it would cause harmful blanketing interference.[7][8][9]

Another possible exception to that general rule on the Canadian side was

Midwestern US. The decline of AM radio as a music source in the 1970s, combined with new Canadian government rules imposing domestic ownership of and minimum domestic music content on Canadian-based stations, made it difficult for CKLW to continue to compete for listeners with Detroit-based, US-licensed FM music stations, which offered clean stereo sound and faced no program content or music playlist restrictions. CKLW abandoned the Top 40 format and its efforts to compete in the Detroit market in the 1980s. Today it is a news/talk station aimed largely at an Ontario audience, though still containing a significant amount of American syndicated talk.[citation needed
]

Brockville; WRCD, WVLF and WMWA targeting Cornwall; and WQLR and WBTZ targeting Montreal. By contrast under CRTC regulations, Canadian radio stations must be operated from studios within the country.[11]

Attempts at border-blasting were somewhat more common on the other side of the border, where smaller markets in the United States could find lucrative larger markets in Canada within their broadcast range.

CKND-TV; Burlington station WFFF-TV entered into a famous cross-border scheduling feud over the simsub problems, while WKBW, after unsuccessfully suing to bar the CRTC from enforcing it on systems that only operate in one province in 1977, competed mainly by focusing on its unique brand of local news, which could not be simsubbed). Also in Western New York, radio station WTOR is licensed to the northwesternmost municipality in the region (Youngstown), operates with a directional signal covering Southern Ontario but very little American territory, and is brokered to a Canadian ethnic broadcaster based in Mississauga; it maintains its U.S. license and transmitter site as a legal fiction, with ethnic broadcaster Sima Birach holding the station's license and claiming himself as "operations manager" even as he seldom appears at the station's nominal U.S. studio in person.[citation needed
]

In the west,

CBUT
, had yet to sign on.

At least one border blaster targets the Russian Far East: KICY broadcasts its religious programming on a 50,000-watt clear-channel directional signal pointed due west from the Seward Peninsula, one of the westernmost land masses in North America.

Programming

Most border blaster stations today program Spanish-language programming targeted at the Mexican side of the border. Some of the Spanish language border blasters target the growing Latino audience living in the southwestern US. Some target both.

As was the case between the 1930s and the 1970s, some border blaster stations in areas near larger American border cities such as San Diego are leased out by American broadcasting companies and air English-language programming targeting American audiences, although the AM stations have sometimes been supplanted by FM signals just over the border and able to reach major American cities like San Diego or El Paso with city-grade signals. During those decades border radio was used by preachers who solicited donations, and advertisers who sold products of dubious value.[12] The American side leases the station from the Mexican station owners/license holders and feeds programming from their American studios to the Mexican transmitters via satellite.

Due to Mexican government regulations, these stations must air the Mexican national anthem at midnight and 6 a.m. daily, the government-produced radio magazine La Hora Nacional on Sunday nights, and 48 minutes of tiempos oficiales (public service announcements from the Mexican government, which include campaign ads during elections) per-day, and give station identification in Spanish. This is usually done softly or during commercial breaks so the listeners on the American side won't usually notice it. The PSA requirement has produced controversy even amongst officials in Mexico, for reasons including reinforcing negative perceptions of the country, taking up airtime that could be used to promote cross-border tourism and interactions instead, and their poor quality.[13]

Geographical list of border blasters

Map of border blaster cities

Baja California

Tijuana / Rosarito

  • XERF
    .
  • XHPRS-FM: This is the FM counterpart to XEPRS-AM.
  • XETRA-FM
  • XETRA-AM
  • XEAK-AM
  • XELO-AM
  • XHITZ-FM: Broadcasts with an English top 40 format targeted exclusively at San Diego.
  • XHMORE-FM
  • XHRM-FM
  • XHRST-FM
  • XETV-TDT: Owned and operated by Televisa. From the station's launch in 1953 to 2017, programming and sales rights were managed by Bay City Television, Inc. (a California-based corporation). Afterwards, it converted to a Canal 5 relay, with signal remained to cover the Spanish community on the American side of the border.
  • XHAS-TDT: programming originates in San Diego but is sent to a transmitter in Tijuana

Sonora

Nogales

  • XELO-AM

Chihuahua

Ciudad Juárez

Coahuila

Ciudad Acuña

  • Amon Carter
    , owner of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. It was shut down by the Mexican authorities on February 24, 1933 and the Villa Acuña Broadcasting Company was dissolved.
  • XERA: In September 1935 Brinkley gained a new license for Villa Acuña from the Government of Mexico with new call letters of XERA. His new operating company was Cía Mexicana Radiodifusora Fronteriza and the station came on the air from the same location as the old XER but with a directional antenna. His new transmitter power was 500 kW, but with his new antenna he claimed an output of 1MW. XERA called itself "the world's most powerful broadcasting station" and Variety magazine claimed that it could be heard in New York City. Following the signing of various treaties, the Government of Mexico revoked the license of XERA in the closing days of 1939.
  • XERF-AM: from 1947. The station that made Wolfman Jack world famous for his disc jockey and sales presentations between 1962 and 1964. This station came on the air long after the era of both XERA and Brinkley, but it initially used his old facilities although the powerful transmitter of XERA had been dismantled and shipped elsewhere. The station later moved to a new building where a 250kW RCA main transmitter was installed. The RCA "Ampliphase"
    transmitter has not been operational for many decades.

Piedras Negras

  • XEPN-AM was sister station to XER/XERA, and was also controlled by John Brinkley.
  • XELO-AM

Nuevo León

Monterrey

  • XEG-AM: In 1950 the advertising time of this station came under the control of Harold Schwartz of Chicago, who also came to represent XERB near Tijuana/Rosarito (the station made famous in the movie American Graffiti.) From the late 1960s through the early 1980s, XEG was known for its nighttime Black/R&B/Disco music programming block, transcribed from KGFJ, Los Angeles. XEG ran a huge 150kW signal at night, with 50kW daytime, on 1050 kHz.
  • XET-AM, nicknamed La T Grande, went on the air in 1930, made the Carter Family music well known in the 1930s.

Tamaulipas

Matamoros

Nuevo Laredo

  • XENT-AM: Operated by Norman G. Baker from 1933 until forced off the air in 1940; "The Calliaphone Station" (for an air-operated calliope invented by Baker) promoted a cancer-cure clinic of Baker's, essentially continuing his former station KTNT ("Know The Naked Truth") of Muscatine, Iowa, as was itself forced off the air in 1931. Brochures for the clinic urged patients to "phone 666 upon arrival in Laredo," attracting many complaints to the American Medical Association as invoked reference to Revelation 13:18, citing 666 as the Mark of the Beast. When the original XENT was dismantled, the callsign was assigned to a new and unrelated station at La Paz, Baja California Sur
    .

Reynosa

  • XED-AM: The first radio station in Mexico to be considered a border-blaster. XED was originally located at Reynosa, Tamaulipas, and was under the advertising sales management of the International Broadcasting Company. Located across the Rio Grande from McAllen, Texas, the station broadcast with a power of 10 kilowatts that was the most powerful transmitter in Mexico at that time.
  • XEAW-AM: Another station that came under the management control of John R. Brinkley. (See XER and XERA.)

Tampico

  • XEFW-AM

See also

External links

References

  1. ISBN 978-0-292-72535-5
    .
  2. ^ Rohter, Larry (May 24, 1987). "Border Music's Long Reach". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 23, 2009. Retrieved January 10, 2011.
  3. ISBN 0-86341-302-1
    .
  4. ^ Centre for Media Research. "The digital switchover and RTE in Northern Ireland". University of Ulster. Archived from the original on February 15, 2016. Retrieved February 3, 2016.
  5. ^ Lucy Rouse (June 10, 2008). "Ireland Television - Irish TV is well on its way to digital". mediaweek.co.uk.
  6. ^ FCC Internet Services Staff. "Legal Action Information". fcc.gov. Archived from the original on November 23, 2015. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  7. ^ Pat Grubb (August 30, 2013). "Heavy static greets radio towers proposal". All Point Bulletin. Archived from the original on November 5, 2013. Retrieved April 8, 2016.
  8. ^ Pat Grubb (August 22, 2013). "Radio towers spark high wattage opposition". All Point Bulletin. Archived from the original on October 19, 2014. Retrieved April 8, 2016.
  9. ^ "Letters and Comments from Ferndale Residents to FCC" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on October 18, 2014. Retrieved 2013-09-09.
  10. ^ "FCC Form 323 (Ownership Report for Commercial Broadcast Stations) for Border International Broadcasting Inc". Federal Communications Commission. October 28, 2011. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved June 19, 2013.
  11. ^ "CKEY-FM Fort Erie and its transmitter CKEY-FM-1 St. Catharines - Licence renewal". CRTC. January 31, 2005. Archived from the original on October 1, 2012. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  12. ^ Tom Miller. On the Border: Portraits of America’s Southwestern Frontier, pp. 76–87.
  13. ^ "Public-service spots have radio listeners wondering". San Diego Union-Tribune. March 12, 2012. Archived from the original on July 17, 2020. Retrieved February 9, 2020.
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