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Border blasters)
A border blaster, unlike an international broadcasting station, is a term that has been specifically used to describe licensed commercial radio stations that have transmited at very high power to the United States of America from various points along the Mexican side of the border. There have been many such stations licensed by Mexico's Ministry of Communications and Transport (SCT) using transmitters with an output far in excess of licensed commercial stations located within the USA. In 1973 the border blaster XERB became world famous when George Lucas featured the station as the source for the musical soundtrack of his movie American Graffiti.
The United States and Mexico signed, on November 9, 1972 in Washington, DC, an "Agreement concerning Frequency Modulation Broadcasting in the 88 to 108 MHz Band". It may be inferred, that since then, at least in the FM band, power levels and frequency assingments have been set by mutual agreement.
Background
These stations are not considered to be pirate radio stations because they are or were licensed by the government upon whose soil they are or were located. Pirate radio stations are freebooters from offshore, outside the territorial waters of the nation they are trying to serve, or they are or were illegally operating in defiance of national law within sovereign territory.
However, a similar situation developed on the continent of Europe between World War I and World War II. It began again with Radio Luxembourg after WWII. The British government identified these stations as pirates because their intended audience was in the British Isles, but in reality these stations were merely breaking the monopoly of the non-commercial BBC. The same phenomenon ("radio périphérique" / "peripheric radio") existed in France from the 30s till the legalization of private broadcasting in the early 80s (with Radio Luxembourg from Luxembourg, Radio Andorre and Sud Radio from Andorra, Radio Monte Carlo from Monaco, Europe 1 from Saarland, Germany). In the instance of Mexico and the United States, while the government of the USA did not like these stations they were not only allowed to flourish, but in the case of Texas one governor used the stations as a part of his election campaign. The only restriction placed upon them was a law which forbade studios in the USA from linking by telephone to border-blaster transmitters in Mexico. This law was introduced in the wake of John R. Brinkley's romance with fascism prior to World War II over XERA. (See Brinkley Act and the history of XERA. A similar law was passed in Britain after WWII. It forbade studios in Britain from linking by telephone to the transmitters of Radio Luxembourg.)
Unfortunately the mythology of the border blaster stations in Mexico is extensive and many conflicting reports have been written about them. Where possible multiple sourced references have been consulted and will be cited in order to eliminate conflicting and error driven reports. The following geographical list shows where these stations are or were located.
Geographical list of border blasters
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- XER - Sunshine Station between the Nations broadcasting on the AM at 735 kcs. This was the original station licensed to Dr. John R. Brinkley in Mexico as the Villa Acuña Broadcasting Company. It first signed on August 18, 1932 with a 50kW transmitter and claimed 75kW erp via an omindirectional antenna. The engineering was by Will Branch of Fort Worth who had engineered WBAP for 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 disolved.
- XERA - In September 1935, which was twenty months after XER was forced off the air, Dr. Brinkley gained a new license for Villa Acuña from the Government of Mexico with new call letters of XERA. His new operating company was Cia Mexicana Radiofusori 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 500kW., but with his new antenna he claimed an ouput of 1 megawatt. 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 - 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 Dr. 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 250 kilowatt RCA main transmitter was installed.
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- XED - 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 (Rio Bravo) river from McAllen, Texas, the station broadcast with a power of 10 kilowatts that was the most powerful transmitter in Mexico at that time.
- XEAW - another station that came under the management control of Dr. John R. Brinkley. (See XER and XERA.)
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See also
- Pirate radio - an explanation of how one nation can license a station that another nation regards as a pirate radio signal. The traditional interpretation of pirate radio is where a station operates without a license from on land and within a sovereign nation in defiance of its broadcasting laws; or from offshore without a license (other than permission of the ship or marine structure registry) from outside of the territorial waters of a sovereign nation, but directing its broadcasting signals into that nation. Radio Luxembourg - was regarded as a pirate radio station even though it broadcast with a license issued by the government of Luxembourg. The United States never branded the border blasters along its international frontier with Mexico as pirate radio stations, but it did regard them as a problem which it attempted to resolve in part by the introduction of the Brinkley Act. The United Kingdom adopted the same response with regards to Radio Luxembourg.
- Clandestine radio broadcasters - these stations attempt to promote social or political change by using secretly located transmitters. These stations are different from international broadcasting services because they are illegally operated, and they are different from traditional pirate radio stations because their operations are both political and secretive.
External links
References
- Border Radio by Fowler, Gene and Crawford, Bill. Texas Monthly Press, Austin. 1987 ISBN 0-87719-066-6
- Mass Media Moments in the United Kingdom, the USSR and the USA, by Gilder, Eric. - "Lucian Blaga" University of Sibiu Press, Romania. 2003 ISBN 973-651-596-6
- "Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Governmente of the United Mexican States Relating to the FM Broadcasting Services in the Band 88-108 MHz", dated August 11, 1992. This agreement implies the existence of an earlier agreement, dated November 9, 1972. (Article 10) Link to Texts of Broadcast Agreements with Mexico
