I'm not sure how crazy the Mexican government ever was about the "service" border stations provided to the U.S. to basically circumvent U.S. consumer and election law, and run Evangelical preaching to the US. They eventually put a stop to it. It's very unlikely XERF or XEROK is going to go back to the power they were using to cover the US.
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DFW MW DX - Exploring the band
- Thread starter TXPH97
- Start date
Mexico agreed to NARBA back in the later 30's when the concept was proposed... they were fine with getting rid of the Doc and his Goat Glands.
On the other hand, Mexico had no objection to preachers, record sales and all the rest such as on XELO, XEG and XERF. Those advertisers went away when FM took over listening across the US and nobody would buy time any longer. But a number of those border stations still run ads for the non-prescription meds with cactus extracts and things like that... but mostly in Spanish.
Yeah, probably something no government is a fan of, I guess.
Good to know about the preaching. Who knew they liked it?
They did not "like" it. In fact, until the New Millennium, religious ownership of radio was prohibited in Mexico, along with religious broadcasts in Spanish. This was part of the policies adopted by the post-Revolution governments, particularly in the 30's, that even prohibited priests wearing religious garb in public on the streets.
But all along they seemed fine with religious broadcasts in English, along with the Prayer Tablecloth, the Resurrection Plant and the autographed photos of Jesus.
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"Must have" item right along with those live baby chicks available from one Mr. Robert Smith (aka Wolfman) and the fine folks at XERF.
.....Seriously, back to the topic of NARBA and protection compliance in general, correct me if I'm wrong, but It seems to me that there's more adherence to the rules in Mexico at the present time than either the U.S. or Canada.
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If we had that same situation today, border blasters would be where Americans would hear about Ivermectin,m hydrochloroquine and all of the supposed Covid miracle cures.
... treatments which have been very, very successful in a number of Latin American nations where obtaining the actual Covid vaccines has been hard due to "First World" nations buying up the available supplies.
I'm not going to say that those treatments saved the life of anyone in my family or my old friends, but none has died. In that particular nation prior to the extensive use of the alternative medications they had a death rate four times that of the U.S. and were burying victims in unmarked graves in banana export containers.
As posted previously, I heard WBAP on a car radio at Kaena Point, the northwest tip of Oahu, as a teenager in February 1965. (I spent my Junior year of high School at McKinley High in Honolulu). I also heard WBAP nightly when I spent several nights on Maui in May of 1994. (What could possibly be more fun than nighttime poolside DXing?)
I sometimes go on the Maui WebSDR and it is amazing what they can pick up. I've heard numerous west coast stations, an Alberta station, and one time a bunch of east Asian stations. It shows what can be heard when there are not that many local stations around.
If you go to the Kaneohe, Hawaii SDR you can get even more. WBBM, WGN, and CJOB come in when conditions are good. Hawaii is a great location for DX.
I don't know. All I remember, and it might have been Mr. Eduardo who said this, is the electrical grid in the area couldn't handle the power XEROK was using. If that was already the case in 2004, I am guessing it was an issue for a while before that.
I could hear WBBM and WGN on my Sangean PR-D5 here until the background noise on the property got really bad.
The regulars such as KFI, KNX, KNBR still come in inside my place even on my Sangean PR-D18 but I can't usually hear the weaker stations like KKOB or KKOH.
Now if I want to do any good nighttime DXing, I have to walk far down the road with my radio to hear anything and we usually get showers every night.
That's why I simply use one of the Hawaii SDRs now instead.
The urban expansion of Cd. Juárez in the 1990's was accompanied by lots of theft of electricity in areas near the XEROK transmitter site and overloading, consequently, of the power grid. When they tried to go back up to 150 kw, the grid could not power it.
In subsequent years, the value of a high power AM in a repetitively small populated are in the desert was nullified and they have been running much lower power ever since.
On my way to Arizona and So-Cal this past May, I spent a night in El Paso. XEROK sounded just fine in the urban metro area, but the day signal beyond the urban island was "underwhelming", If I had to make a guess, I'd say maybe 5 or 10kw is what it sounded like to me. Perhaps 25kw if the surrounding desert ground conductivity is really poor.
I'm a fan of that receiver. I also agree with radioman that the Kaneohe rig performs even better. (although both are very good.). Kaneohe is on the other side of the Koolau mountains from Honolulu, basically facing the mainland. The tall mountains basically diminish the strengh of the signals from the big city about fifteen miles away. It all makes for a good setup for DX.
That's my observation as well. The Kanehoe receiver seems to get better reception from the mainland.
Imagine AM DXing was much better back then.
I've lived in Tampa since 2006 and rarely get any good stations at night on AM.
WSB, the Charlotte 1100, and maybe some others is about it.
Thankfully, I'm moving out of state soon, to Texas, where AM nighttime reception will be much better.
Unfortunately, the programming on the clear channel stations hasn't been maintained, so may be less interesting.
KRLD, Dallas, for example, use to have great local hosts at night. I recall that music flashback show they did, backtracks?.
Today, running Dave Ramsey is like phoning it in.
No vision. No imagination. Truly plug and play. Only run what stations in every other market run.
Still, DXing will be better in Texas than mostly local stations here in Fla. at night.
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To what part of Texas are you relocating?
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