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Border-blaster is a term usually applied to a very specific type of commercial radio station that transmits with super-power and is usually located at some point along the Mexican side of the international border with the United States of America. There have been many such stations which have been 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 border-blaster XERB became world famous when George Lucas featured the station as the source for the musical soundtrack of his movie American Graffiti.
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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. 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 - the original station used by Dr. John R. Brinkley in Mexico. It was later replaced by XERA at the same location.
- XERA - the station used by Dr. John R. Brinkley until 1939 when it was closed by the government of Mexico under pressure from the government of the United States.
- 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. The station later moved to a new building where a 250,000 watts 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 10,000 watts (10kW) which 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.
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
External sources
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