I was picking up a Mexican radio station today around 10:30 AM. I listened and tried to pick up an I.D., but no luck. They played a couple of public service announcements (The ones that go like "El Govierno de la Republica"). Then, they gave a Phone number for U.S. Listeners (which gave away their border blaster status). Now, after the next song, the next liner was exactly "Con Cien Mil watts de potencia". Now, That's when I realized it was KERF. But what bothers me is that I always assumed that they were at 250,000 watts. What happened?
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1570 AM Power Question
- Thread starter oldjohnny
- Start date
oldjohnny said:
I don't know the exact dates, but somewhere in the 80's the 250 kw rig started failing, and at the same time sales of block programming fell off. The station ran many years at 17 kw, and then, when the IMER (Government entitity) took it over, they installed a 100 kw transmitter.
Most of the time it wat 250 kw, it ran only sunset to sunrise, too.
I remember reading about them having power problems on this very board (sad for what was once a great signal). When did they power back up to 100, 000 watts? From what I remember you writing David (correct me please if I'm wrong) is that after the 250, 000 watt transmitter started failing, they were having a hard time attracting advertisers or an audience. Which left me with the feeling that the station was beyond hope and that it was doomed to be a nothing more than a shell of what it once was. Hopefully things will start lo0king up for the station.
oldjohnny said:
The actual call-letters are XERF. At one time (until the late 1970's), this old timer was running a cool 250k, every night. It was a RF monster with lots of fire-in-Brimstone preachers, some very shady "miracle cures" and of course my hero, the late Bob ("Wolfman Jack") Smith. I treasure my 1974 QSL from the Mighty X! But alas, those 250k days are long since over. The station was never able to regain a foothold in the market due to many factors, mainly technical. I heard one of the last full powered 250,000 watt broadcasts in 1982 with some preacher from SoCal called "Doctor Cross" asking for "a $10 donation with your first prayer request". The famous Paul Kalinger ID's were still in use back in 1982, complete with a Del Rio, Texas mailing address. XERF did at one time have a Construction Permit for a full 500,000 watts. But by the time they got the permission, the old RCA Ampliphase unit was really hurting, never mind the cost of powering such a device. They had to make their own electricity (generator style). Like David said, the station limped for many years at about 17,000 watts, barely a shadow of it's former self. The original owner turned in the license to the "Gobierno de Mexico", who actually kept the license active for their own use. Will XERF rise up from the ashes? In this day of Internet and such, I don't know. I miss the Big X. What a time!
Peter, your the first person I know who has ever heard of "Dr. Cross." I heard this radio preacher on WLAC overnights. I remember one of the testimonials to his "luck of life" package. A woman read the letter and it went something like this:
"Dear Doctor Cross, I had all kinds of problems in my life--my man was acting up on me, my son was doing drugs and I could not talk to him. Then I ordered your luck of life package, and everything went great. I got my man back--my son DON'T HARDLY USE DRUGS ANYMORE (LOL!), and I could talk to him..." I laugh every time I think of that.
If you know that preacher, I'll bet you'll also remember the Reverend E.E. Duncan from "House--H-O-U-S-E--Springs, Missouri." His show ran on border blasters like XEG Monterrey, NL.
I miss the days of border blasters like these.
"Dear Doctor Cross, I had all kinds of problems in my life--my man was acting up on me, my son was doing drugs and I could not talk to him. Then I ordered your luck of life package, and everything went great. I got my man back--my son DON'T HARDLY USE DRUGS ANYMORE (LOL!), and I could talk to him..." I laugh every time I think of that.
If you know that preacher, I'll bet you'll also remember the Reverend E.E. Duncan from "House--H-O-U-S-E--Springs, Missouri." His show ran on border blasters like XEG Monterrey, NL.
I miss the days of border blasters like these.
spiritof67 said:
Hi "Spirit"!
Oh, yes.... the Doctor Cross program was unique, to say the least! I don't recall Reverend Duncan, but then again.... anything that came out of XERF was a real "hoot"! Now, what made Doctor Cross stand out among the other radio preachers was that the good ol' Doctor interspersed his name many, many times over the rhythm and blues music background music like this....."Calling Doctor Cross......... Doctor Cross......... Doctor Cross. The Doctor is here to help YOU. And be sure to mail in a $10 donation with your first prayer request". He also played some R&B music including the 1966 hit "Searching For My Love" by Bobby Moore and The Rhythm Aces, hardly the normal fare for the "average" radio preacher. But then again, this was XERF! I'm sure the music was pre-packaged by the Doctor as I heard the exact same show one week later again on XERF. This was about 2 or 3 in the morning, some Monday overnight in November, 1982. How I wish I were around during the "glory days' of the Border Blasters! The stories behind them are the stuff of the bizarre!
Peter Q. George (K1XRB) said:
The manager of XERF in the 60's was Sergio Ballesteros, who is now a record company executive in Puerto Rico and a long-time friend. He has told me man stories of XERF, including the time mounted bandits hired by one of the feuding owners rode into town and went into the station on horseback, guns firing away.
My favorite is his story of a preacher who got lots of donations with a little gimmick. He would tell the listeners, "put your hand on your radio and feel the power of the Lord" and then run a cart that had a 25 Hz tone on it. Most people could not hear 25Hz but it made the radio vibrate like mad. Except sometimes the tone caused the transmitter to overload and go off the air.
Wow, just realized the power this station still has even with 100,000 watts. I was listening last night for random recording pursposes, and DAMN, this station reaches a lot of corners of Latin America. They had letters sent in all the way from Cuba, El Salvador, And many different cities in the U.S. I would haved loved to see the distances this station reached with its full 250 KW transmitter. Too bad it is only at 100 KW. They even sound better (reception wise) than XEG 1050 AM (the station famous for saying " La Ranchera de Monterrey y tus tiendas favoritas Oxxo te dan el Tiempo!",)
The propagation characteristics at 1570 kHz have historically given XERF almost shortwave-style coverage of distant points. At times in its heyday - including at least some of the Wolfman Jack era - the station covered much, if not most, of the USA as a "nighttimer."
If you guys haven't already, the now out-of-print book "Border Radio" by Gene Fowler and Bill Crawford is a must-read. Good copies are regularly available at amazon.com and alibris.com.
If you guys haven't already, the now out-of-print book "Border Radio" by Gene Fowler and Bill Crawford is a must-read. Good copies are regularly available at amazon.com and alibris.com.
Savage said:
Caveat... the book is full of errors, particularyly on XERF. The manager of XERF in the late 50's and early 60's, Sergio Ballesteros, looked it over and called it "fantasy."
Savage said:
Well....not quite.
I first encountered Bob Smith/Wolfman on XERF during my college days in Iowa. He came on right after some preacher who informed his audience nightly that then-president LBJ was actually the devil (or a commie...I forget which), but that he (the preacher) could save us, if we would just be so kind as to send him some money. None of us waiting for Wolf to come on actually sent the guy money, but his hypothesis about the President had at least some credence given the unpopularity of the Viet Nam war at the time!
Anyway, the signal out there in Iowa was only fair at best. Not nearly the equal of the blowtorch KAAY or even KOMA (we were on the edge of their northern lobe at best). We regularly flipped between Wolf, KOMA, and John R. on the also-stronger WLAC.
250 miles to the northeast, at home in the Chicago area, XERF was quite weak, and regularly got pummelled by the 1570s in Orillia and St. Thomas, Ontario...CFOR and CHLO.
(I actually got a better signal from farther away in Mexico on 1000 from XEMIL when I nulled local WCFL).
My point is the XERF nighttime signal back in the day didn't exactly behave like one might have expected, if indeed anything exceeding 50kw was being used. I don't think it penetrated areas beyond the Midwest very well....if at all.
cyberdad said:
That's XEOY, 10 day, 1 kw night in the 60's.
In NE Ohio, XERF was a local at night from the time it signed on at 6 PM CST. And it definitely ran 250 kw in the 60s and the 70's; there are pictures on the web and one of my best friends in Puerto Rico was the GM of the station from the late 80's to about 1972.
You mean the late SIXTIES to about 1972?
I don't know about literal nighttime coverage of the entire USA, but I've read various accounts of XERF's signal from disparate sources from Bob Smith/Wolfman Jack to the aforementioned "Border Radio" book to the accounts on the web like ominousvalve.com and they pretty much comport with my own experience. I got interested in radio in high school and landed my first job in 1967 and in that era regularly logged XERF with an excellent signal in Western New York, even on radios without external antennas. So I had the same luck you did with getting XERF in the Northeast.
I wasn't vouching for the accuracy of every aspect of "Border Radio," merely saying it's a highly entertaining read. From the various accounts I've read of The Great Shootout and the labor troubles at XERF, there is so much opportunity for romantic embellishment (especially when Wolfman is involved) and hazy remembrance that it's not surprising one of the eyewitnesses would describe aspects of XERF's legends as "fantasy."
There's plenty of fantasy to go around in the radio biz. Don Geronimo, late of the syndicated "Don & Mike Show," used to regularly spin some fantastic tale on-air about the night I fired him at 13Q Pittsburgh. He claimed he came to my house and fired a shotgun overhead and scared me out of my wits, which was utter nonsense. It never happened.
I don't know about literal nighttime coverage of the entire USA, but I've read various accounts of XERF's signal from disparate sources from Bob Smith/Wolfman Jack to the aforementioned "Border Radio" book to the accounts on the web like ominousvalve.com and they pretty much comport with my own experience. I got interested in radio in high school and landed my first job in 1967 and in that era regularly logged XERF with an excellent signal in Western New York, even on radios without external antennas. So I had the same luck you did with getting XERF in the Northeast.
I wasn't vouching for the accuracy of every aspect of "Border Radio," merely saying it's a highly entertaining read. From the various accounts I've read of The Great Shootout and the labor troubles at XERF, there is so much opportunity for romantic embellishment (especially when Wolfman is involved) and hazy remembrance that it's not surprising one of the eyewitnesses would describe aspects of XERF's legends as "fantasy."
There's plenty of fantasy to go around in the radio biz. Don Geronimo, late of the syndicated "Don & Mike Show," used to regularly spin some fantastic tale on-air about the night I fired him at 13Q Pittsburgh. He claimed he came to my house and fired a shotgun overhead and scared me out of my wits, which was utter nonsense. It never happened.
Savage said:
No, I mean from about 1958 (I have a verie signed by Sergio... who later became a best friend when he moved to Puerto Rico) to about 1972 when Mr. Ballesteros left.
That it is... and even most of the inaccuracies have to do with Mexican licencing, calls, transmitter locations, etc., that have little to do with the goat glands and prayer tablecloths which are the essence of the story.
The shootout actually happened, but it seems that it was about the local government and the fact that XERF provided the street lighting for much of Villa Acuña at the time. Still, there was a shootout. And all announcers in Mexico had to be in the union and union issues were rife... part of the overall story. Fortunately, I have enjoyed a friendship with Sergio Ballesteros for 35 years... the amusing thing is that nowere was it revealed that Richard Eaton (United Broadcasting) owned most of XERF via his Mexican wife du jour as well as XESM 1470 in Mexico City... Ballesteros was transferred to XERF from WBNX because he is Mexican by birth!
There's plenty of fantasy to go around in the radio biz. Don Geronimo, late of the syndicated "Don & Mike Show," used to regularly spin some fantastic tale on-air about the night I fired him at 13Q Pittsburgh. He claimed he came to my house and fired a shotgun overhead and scared me out of my wits, which was utter nonsense. It never happened.
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XEOY....Yes indeed, I stand corrected. I believe they also called themselves "Radio Mil" (and still do).
As for the 1570 signal, I'm just stating what I recall. My guess is that the timing of my listening to XERF in the late sixties probably coincided with periods when they weren't running the full power.
As for the 1570 signal, I'm just stating what I recall. My guess is that the timing of my listening to XERF in the late sixties probably coincided with periods when they weren't running the full power.
cyberdad said:
Yep, it was the premier Top 40 in Mexico City in the 60's, programmed by Jaime Ortiz Pino who did the Spanish lyrics for such classics as Splish Splash and hundreds of other covers of US hits by local artists.
The 60's was when their revenue was at the highest, and they had installed a brand new RCA transmitter at the beginning of the decade... more than likely atmospherics than running at lower power. Not everyone remembers, but they rand only from 6 PM to 6 AM, not at all in the daytime.
I recall reading somewhere that the XERF 250kw rig was an RCA Ampliphase, and that it was very much a prototype design. IIRC it allegedly had stability problems and was prone to overheating, and frequently the station had to reduce power while their engineers tinkered.
I think it was the North Sea pirate M/V Mebo that used another prototype high-power Ampliphase, either 100kw or 250kw, and that one never worked right either.
I think it was the North Sea pirate M/V Mebo that used another prototype high-power Ampliphase, either 100kw or 250kw, and that one never worked right either.
Savage said:
The one placed in service around '63 was a production model... 250 kw was not an unusual power outside the US and they sold a lot of them. I was contract engineer for a while for one in Ecuador a year or so later, a run of the mill 10 kw, and if kept in adjustment it was not a particulary annoying transmitter to work on.
I'll call the manager later and ask how reliable the transmitter was. Remember, they had 12 hours every day to do maintenance on it, too. One thing I do not think it had was the ability to cut power. and, of course, they had the older 50's transmitter as a backup, which was a local built thing in the mid-100 kw range.
I guess I was putting together a couple of transmitter accounts from disparate sources. John Price's famous "Superpowers and Borderblasters" piece in RP&P back in '79 stated that XERF had installed "a 250kw RCA Ampliphase, reportedly never at full power" during the station's heydays in the 60s.
The ross-revenge/uk site lists an Ampliphase chronology including a listing of a 250kw unit for XERF, delivered somewhere around 1960, which did not have a model number, which was certainly very unusual for RCA. There is also a catalog page showing a beefed up BTA-50H, designated a BTH-100, which was a standard broadcast-band RCA Ampliphase with an additional PA cabinet to make 100kw. The 'BTH' nomenclature is the only departure from standard model designation for RCA which otherwise invariably assigned model numbers to its transmitters as '"BTA" for AM and "BTF" for FM rigs, as in "broadcast AM" and "broadcast FM." The ross-revenge site is very detailed and echoes accounts found elsewhere about ongoing problems with the high-power export Ampliphases:
"Very few of these 100Bs appear to have been made, possibly as few as 4 or 5 with the first three being shipped in 1961 to overseas customers and all seem to have been regarded as prototypes." The two accounts quoted, taken together, seem to indicate that the XERF unit was the only 250kw Ampliphase RCA ever built. (If someone reading this knows otherwise please PM me, since I'm kind of an Ampliphase history fan.)
The high-power Ampliphase page on ross-revenge's site includes a photo of the BTH-100 in the transmitter gallery of the M/V Mebo with the caption stating the Ampliphase "was prone to overheating" and noting it was removed after relatively short service, then shipped to Libya.
The ross-revenge/uk site lists an Ampliphase chronology including a listing of a 250kw unit for XERF, delivered somewhere around 1960, which did not have a model number, which was certainly very unusual for RCA. There is also a catalog page showing a beefed up BTA-50H, designated a BTH-100, which was a standard broadcast-band RCA Ampliphase with an additional PA cabinet to make 100kw. The 'BTH' nomenclature is the only departure from standard model designation for RCA which otherwise invariably assigned model numbers to its transmitters as '"BTA" for AM and "BTF" for FM rigs, as in "broadcast AM" and "broadcast FM." The ross-revenge site is very detailed and echoes accounts found elsewhere about ongoing problems with the high-power export Ampliphases:
"Very few of these 100Bs appear to have been made, possibly as few as 4 or 5 with the first three being shipped in 1961 to overseas customers and all seem to have been regarded as prototypes." The two accounts quoted, taken together, seem to indicate that the XERF unit was the only 250kw Ampliphase RCA ever built. (If someone reading this knows otherwise please PM me, since I'm kind of an Ampliphase history fan.)
The high-power Ampliphase page on ross-revenge's site includes a photo of the BTH-100 in the transmitter gallery of the M/V Mebo with the caption stating the Ampliphase "was prone to overheating" and noting it was removed after relatively short service, then shipped to Libya.
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