Wolfman Jack Big Broadcasts question

[The King Bee]

Throughout the mid- and late 1970s, when I was in the USAF stationed at Cannon AFB in Clovis, NM (a great base in an awful location), we used to listen to several hours of English-language R&B programming nightly from XEG (1050 KHz, 150 Kw) in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. The jocks, Bill Harris and "Stumblin' Blue", recorded the shows in Los Angeles and shipped tapes to XEG. The signal was incredibly stable and clear with long periods between fade cycles. I still have a QSL card from 1976!

The station had huge listenership throughout the West, Southwest and Midwest, particularly around military bases and cities (Omaha, Wichita, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, etc.) that had decent African-American populations but not enough to support a fulltime local R&B station back then. However, with disco, funk and fusion jazz ruling the R&B and Top 40 charts then, they had listeners from every demo tuned in at night.

 

[BRNout]

In the 80's there was an attempt to bring back XERF at 250,000 watts with a CCM format, but it was eventually turned into a Dollar a Holler station. It didn't last long though.

XERB's transmitter was in Rosarita Beach - near Tijuana. Wolfman Jack recorded his shows in Los Angeles, and the tapes were driven across the border to be played at the transmitter site.

I don't know about XERF, but I seriously doubt XERB (1090) pumped out anything more than 50,000 watts. I would think anything more powerful would have obliterated KNX at 1070, and KRLA at 1110 - but both of those stations had strong signals at night.

50K watt stations on AM clear channels at night can often be heard clearly for hundreds, or even thousands of miles in the station's directional path. I'm not clear why they would need 250K watts.

If memory serves, XERB had a directional signal that was designed to serve areas north of the border and to null anything to the south. So, even if they were limited to 50 kw (and it was probably more), the effective power streamed into the US was probably more like 100 kw. Being 20 kHz away from the likes of KNX and KRLA at that distance would still have been sufficient in the days before IBOC. My understanding was that XERB really cranked out the juice during their heyday and were heard clearly every night throughout the western 1/3 of the US....well up to Seattle.

The present directional 50 kw signal of this station not only blankets San Diego, but gets into the LA basin pretty well too, during the day. They're not as impressive at night as they once were though. This leads me to believe that they were cranking out more like 100 kw back in the 60s.

 

[radioman148]

In the 80's there was an attempt to bring back XERF at 250,000 watts with a CCM format, but it was eventually turned into a Dollar a Holler station. It didn't last long though.

XERB's transmitter was in Rosarita Beach - near Tijuana. Wolfman Jack recorded his shows in Los Angeles, and the tapes were driven across the border to be played at the transmitter site.

I don't know about XERF, but I seriously doubt XERB (1090) pumped out anything more than 50,000 watts. I would think anything more powerful would have obliterated KNX at 1070, and KRLA at 1110 - but both of those stations had strong signals at night.

50K watt stations on AM clear channels at night can often be heard clearly for hundreds, or even thousands of miles in the station's directional path. I'm not clear why they would need 250K watts.

If memory serves, XERB had a directional signal that was designed to serve areas north of the border and to null anything to the south. So, even if they were limited to 50 kw (and it was probably more), the effective power streamed into the US was probably more like 100 kw. Being 20 kHz away from the likes of KNX and KRLA at that distance would still have been sufficient in the days before IBOC. My understanding was that XERB really cranked out the juice during their heyday and were heard clearly every night throughout the western 1/3 of the US....well up to Seattle.

The present directional 50 kw signal of this station not only blankets San Diego, but gets into the LA basin pretty well too, during the day. They're not as impressive at night as they once were though. This leads me to believe that they were cranking out more like 100 kw back in the 60s.

I was in LA a few times in the late 60s and heard XERB pretty well on a small transistor radio during the day even with KNX & KRLA on either side. I suspect you may be right about their power.

 

[BRNout]

I was in LA a few times in the late 60s and heard XERB pretty well on a small transistor radio during the day even with KNX & KRLA on either side. I suspect you may be right about their power.

I was a little kid back in the late 60s and already a radio geek. When we went to southern California, my dad absolutely insisted on listening to KHJ and I memorized those fantastic jingles by heart. As soon as we hit south Orange County (if coming from SD) or the rental car at LAX, he'd switch the station to 93. Imagine my amazement to find those airchecks on Reelradio.com and YES, the jingles and presentation was every bit as good (and the same) as I remembered from the tender age of 5.

By the way, he had great taste in radio back then and was the one who taught me to listen to WPGC, WABC, WLS and WRKO as well. And the magic of skywave. Wherever we were, he knew the best stations - and which ones boomed in at night. Of course, you'd never know it to talk to him now!

[I know this post was off-topic, but your comment had me feeling a bit nostalgic. ]

 

[LKellerIII]

In the 80's there was an attempt to bring back XERF at 250,000 watts with a CCM format, but it was eventually turned into a Dollar a Holler station. It didn't last long though.

XERB's transmitter was in Rosarita Beach - near Tijuana. Wolfman Jack recorded his shows in Los Angeles, and the tapes were driven across the border to be played at the transmitter site.

I don't know about XERF, but I seriously doubt XERB (1090) pumped out anything more than 50,000 watts. I would think anything more powerful would have obliterated KNX at 1070, and KRLA at 1110 - but both of those stations had strong signals at night.

50K watt stations on AM clear channels at night can often be heard clearly for hundreds, or even thousands of miles in the station's directional path. I'm not clear why they would need 250K watts.

If memory serves, XERB had a directional signal that was designed to serve areas north of the border and to null anything to the south. So, even if they were limited to 50 kw (and it was probably more), the effective power streamed into the US was probably more like 100 kw. Being 20 kHz away from the likes of KNX and KRLA at that distance would still have been sufficient in the days before IBOC. My understanding was that XERB really cranked out the juice during their heyday and were heard clearly every night throughout the western 1/3 of the US....well up to Seattle.

The present directional 50 kw signal of this station not only blankets San Diego, but gets into the LA basin pretty well too, during the day. They're not as impressive at night as they once were though. This leads me to believe that they were cranking out more like 100 kw back in the 60s.

I was in LA a few times in the late 60s and heard XERB pretty well on a small transistor radio during the day even with KNX & KRLA on either side. I suspect you may be right about their power.

50K watts on a clear channel was more than enough to get XERB into the LA basin from Rosarito Beach during the day. KGO 810 (licensed to San Francisco) comes in quite clearly during the daytime in Redding CA (just a little hiss) - 230 miles north of their Palo Alto transmitter. Los Angeles to Rosararito Beach is about 100 miles less than that.

On the subject of XERB's power, the internet is somewhat inconsistent. The XERB nostalgia site (see link) has the slogan "50,000 Watts of Soul Power," yet the link on that site to the "Story of XERB" references 250,000 watts. The Wikipedia article on Wolfman Jack confuses XERB with XERF - not surprising I guess.


http://www.xerbradio.com/

 

[radioman148]

I was in LA a few times in the late 60s and heard XERB pretty well on a small transistor radio during the day even with KNX & KRLA on either side. I suspect you may be right about their power.

I was a little kid back in the late 60s and already a radio geek. When we went to southern California, my dad absolutely insisted on listening to KHJ and I memorized those fantastic jingles by heart. As soon as we hit south Orange County (if coming from SD) or the rental car at LAX, he'd switch the station to 93. Imagine my amazement to find those airchecks on Reelradio.com and YES, the jingles and presentation was every bit as good (and the same) as I remembered from the tender age of 5.

By the way, he had great taste in radio back then and was the one who taught me to listen to WPGC, WABC, WLS and WRKO as well. And the magic of skywave. Wherever we were, he knew the best stations - and which ones boomed in at night. Of course, you'd never know it to talk to him now!

[I know this post was off-topic, but your comment had me feeling a bit nostalgic. ]

You were lucky as my parents never wanted to hear rock. I had to beg to get a Top 40 station on the car radio in the 60s.

 

[TheStoker]

Interesting site: http://www.xerbradio.com/

 

[michael hagerty]

In the 80's there was an attempt to bring back XERF at 250,000 watts with a CCM format, but it was eventually turned into a Dollar a Holler station. It didn't last long though.

XERB's transmitter was in Rosarita Beach - near Tijuana. Wolfman Jack recorded his shows in Los Angeles, and the tapes were driven across the border to be played at the transmitter site.

I don't know about XERF, but I seriously doubt XERB (1090) pumped out anything more than 50,000 watts. I would think anything more powerful would have obliterated KNX at 1070, and KRLA at 1110 - but both of those stations had strong signals at night.

50K watt stations on AM clear channels at night can often be heard clearly for hundreds, or even thousands of miles in the station's directional path. I'm not clear why they would need 250K watts.

If memory serves, XERB had a directional signal that was designed to serve areas north of the border and to null anything to the south. So, even if they were limited to 50 kw (and it was probably more), the effective power streamed into the US was probably more like 100 kw. Being 20 kHz away from the likes of KNX and KRLA at that distance would still have been sufficient in the days before IBOC. My understanding was that XERB really cranked out the juice during their heyday and were heard clearly every night throughout the western 1/3 of the US....well up to Seattle.

The present directional 50 kw signal of this station not only blankets San Diego, but gets into the LA basin pretty well too, during the day. They're not as impressive at night as they once were though. This leads me to believe that they were cranking out more like 100 kw back in the 60s.

I was in LA a few times in the late 60s and heard XERB pretty well on a small transistor radio during the day even with KNX & KRLA on either side. I suspect you may be right about their power.

At one point, I remember XERB talking about their coverage of "17 western states, Mexico and Canada". Pretty sure that was hype. But Baja to British Columbia and as far east as the Four Corners (Arizona/Utah/New Mexico/Colorado) is probably about right. That would have given them 11 states (California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico).

50kw daytime is more than you need to get a good signal into L.A. from Rosarita Beach.

The difference in night coverage between the 60s and now may be less about the power at the transmitter than in degradation of the AM band. Every single one of those backlit plastic business signs is a flourescent...generating interference with AM. Only gas stations and fast foods had 'em in '69. Now they're everywhere.

And I'll bet XEPRS' owners over the years have spent somewhere around zero on maintaining the ground radials under the towers...so there's 40 years worth of slow decay.

My bet: 50kw then, 50kw now. But like most things from four decades ago, it buys you a lot less today.

---Michael Hagerty

PS to Llew: XERB actually changed the calls to XEPRS before Wolf bailed out. His farewell show on 4/15/72 was on XEPRS. The flip happened sometime in 1971.

Someone had an XEPRS playlist (week of 12/24/71) for sale on eBay until recently. No longer for sale, but you can still look:

http://cgi.ebay.com/XEPRS-R&B-Radio-LA-Tijuana-Soul-Music-Survey-12-24-71_W0QQitemZ180342969217QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090403?IMSfp=TL090403158007r3047

 

[LKellerIII]

In the 80's there was an attempt to bring back XERF at 250,000 watts with a CCM format, but it was eventually turned into a Dollar a Holler station. It didn't last long though.

XERB's transmitter was in Rosarita Beach - near Tijuana. Wolfman Jack recorded his shows in Los Angeles, and the tapes were driven across the border to be played at the transmitter site.

I don't know about XERF, but I seriously doubt XERB (1090) pumped out anything more than 50,000 watts. I would think anything more powerful would have obliterated KNX at 1070, and KRLA at 1110 - but both of those stations had strong signals at night.

50K watt stations on AM clear channels at night can often be heard clearly for hundreds, or even thousands of miles in the station's directional path. I'm not clear why they would need 250K watts.

If memory serves, XERB had a directional signal that was designed to serve areas north of the border and to null anything to the south. So, even if they were limited to 50 kw (and it was probably more), the effective power streamed into the US was probably more like 100 kw. Being 20 kHz away from the likes of KNX and KRLA at that distance would still have been sufficient in the days before IBOC. My understanding was that XERB really cranked out the juice during their heyday and were heard clearly every night throughout the western 1/3 of the US....well up to Seattle.

The present directional 50 kw signal of this station not only blankets San Diego, but gets into the LA basin pretty well too, during the day. They're not as impressive at night as they once were though. This leads me to believe that they were cranking out more like 100 kw back in the 60s.

I was in LA a few times in the late 60s and heard XERB pretty well on a small transistor radio during the day even with KNX & KRLA on either side. I suspect you may be right about their power.

At one point, I remember XERB talking about their coverage of "17 western states, Mexico and Canada". Pretty sure that was hype. But Baja to British Columbia and as far east as the Four Corners (Arizona/Utah/New Mexico/Colorado) is probably about right. That would have given them 11 states (California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico).

50kw daytime is more than you need to get a good signal into L.A. from Rosarita Beach.

The difference in night coverage between the 60s and now may be less about the power at the transmitter than in degradation of the AM band. Every single one of those backlit plastic business signs is a flourescent...generating interference with AM. Only gas stations and fast foods had 'em in '69. Now they're everywhere.

And I'll bet XEPRS' owners over the years have spent somewhere around zero on maintaining the ground radials under the towers...so there's 40 years worth of slow decay.

My bet: 50kw then, 50kw now. But like most things from four decades ago, it buys you a lot less today.

---Michael Hagerty

PS to Llew: XERB actually changed the calls to XEPRS before Wolf bailed out. His farewell show on 4/15/72 was on XEPRS. The flip happened sometime in 1971.

http://cgi.ebay.com/XEPRS-R&B-Radio-LA-Tijuana-Soul-Music-Survey-12-24-71_W0QQitemZ180342969217QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090403?IMSfp=TL090403158007r3047

Thanks, Michael. Good information. I obviously wasn't listening when Wolf was on The "Soul Express.". Mostly, I remember Tom Reed "The Master Blaster" - a handle you can have all sorts of fun with, but I won't go there. I also seem to remember many hours of brokered programming for Art Laboe's "Oldies But Goodies.", which at that time, were 50's hits - some of them totally obscure and unknown...to me, anyway.

 

[michael hagerty]

Thanks, Michael. Good information. I obviously wasn't listening when Wolf was on The "Soul Express.". Mostly, I remember Tom Reed "The Master Blaster" - a handle you can have all sorts of fun with, but I won't go there. I also seem to remember many hours of brokered programming for Art Laboe's "Oldies But Goodies.", which at that time, were 50's hits - some of them totally obscure and unknown...to me, anyway.

Llew: Art Laboe's stuff is a great example of how much local and regional influence there was in Southern California...songs the rest of the country never heard were huge hits on KPOP in the 50s...and are absolute classics to English-speaking Hispanics of a certain age from the Southland.

---Michael Hagerty

 

[LKellerIII]

Thanks, Michael. Good information. I obviously wasn't listening when Wolf was on The "Soul Express.". Mostly, I remember Tom Reed "The Master Blaster" - a handle you can have all sorts of fun with, but I won't go there. I also seem to remember many hours of brokered programming for Art Laboe's "Oldies But Goodies.", which at that time, were 50's hits - some of them totally obscure and unknown...to me, anyway.

Llew: Art Laboe's stuff is a great example of how much local and regional influence there was in Southern California...songs the rest of the country never heard were huge hits on KPOP in the 50s...and are absolute classics to English-speaking Hispanics of a certain age from the Southland.

---Michael Hagerty

Yes - I remember The Art Laboe Oldies But Goodies Shows at the El Monte Legion Stadium. I never went - I was more of a Jefferson Airplane at the Pauley Pavilion type (hippie) at the time. And I was a bit young for 50s concerts. But I always had an image in my head of hundreds of custom low-riders (51 Mercurys, etc.) pulling up to the stadium for the concerts.

Radio commercials for those shows could be heard on many stations. Laboe seemed like quite the entrepreneur.

 

[hornet61]

Always tempted to order a box of baby chicks from Wolfman during his heyday at XERB. Around 1983 I was doing a Weekly Oldies gig at the local Disco Warehouse size club called "Grahmn Central Station" and they brought in Wolfman Jack for one night to work the booth with me. After about an hour into the gig I turned to Wolfman and asked If there was a paticular song he wanted to play.......in his inimitable voice he replied "No baby you're doing great" ...that was my biggest thrill in 32 of live DJ work. He slammed down a dozen Rum and Coke that night and we had a ball, but I can't remember a thing we talked about, I was In complete awe of my booth-mate that night. Oh by the way, those dozen rum and coke, came back to haunt the Wolfman later that evening. An Oldies station I was at recently, carried the syndicated "Wolfman Show", a paid show, not bartered.

 

[Bud50]

There's some good audio here:

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=subject:"Wolfman Jack"

Enjoy, I do!

 

[Icangelp]

I can remember listening to XERF during the 60's while out cruising Indianapolis with my friends. XERF is the first place I heard the Wolfman.

I also remember the signal being much weaker than I expected, what with 250KW, a high frequency and having the night pretty much to itself. Most US stations on 1570 were still daytimers only. Though, I do remember CFOR and CHLO in Ontario did their best to interfere.

 

[Basnya]

Everything you ever wanted to know about XERF, Border Blasters, and the Wolfman Connection:

http://www.modestoradiomuseum.org/story of xerf.html

A quack doctor. A million watts. Goat testicles. Hitler. Wolfman Jack. Now THIS is radio!

 

[jonbruce]

Michael is right about electrical noise degrading AM signals these days compared to what they were decades ago. I visited the 1090 site and they only had a very old 50kw transmitter there. However, as mentioned in past posts the fact that it was directional into L.A. would increase the field strength well beyond what a non-directional 50kw would provide. In addition to that, they were modulating at about 300% !

 

[elchupacabras]

Great article on electrical noise in the current Radio World. Worthwhile checking it out.

 

[radioman148]

I can remember listening to XERF during the 60's while out cruising Indianapolis with my friends. XERF is the first place I heard the Wolfman.

I also remember the signal being much weaker than I expected, what with 250KW, a high frequency and having the night pretty much to itself. Most US stations on 1570 were still daytimers only. Though, I do remember CFOR and CHLO in Ontario did their best to interfere.

I also tried to listen to XERF in the midwest. It was very tough with the competition.

 

[RadioFan2J3]

. I've heard of the power being as high at 250,000 watts, but whether that was true or not, I don't know. Some have said the stations were pumping so much power that it was actually dangerous. Any truth to that?

There are numerous MW stations in the Middle East, Africa and Asia running 500 kw and more and a handful at 2000 kW.

These are transmitter output power levels, not ERP on gain MW arrays.

At these power levels, the operating staff stays away from the antenna systems and particular care is taken to ground everything which isn't supposed to be hot. In some cases, the fences around the tower structures are tied into the transmitter interlock circuitry, and in almost all cases, the doors for the tuning shelters are also tied into the interlock systems.

 

[cyberdad]

I can remember listening to XERF during the 60's while out cruising Indianapolis with my friends. XERF is the first place I heard the Wolfman.

I also remember the signal being much weaker than I expected, what with 250KW, a high frequency and having the night pretty much to itself. Most US stations on 1570 were still daytimers only. Though, I do remember CFOR and CHLO in Ontario did their best to interfere.

I also tried to listen to XERF in the midwest. It was very tough with the competition.

XERF was a little rough to listen to in the Chicago area...primarily due to CFOR and CHLO (more so the latter). But still it was do-able most nights. A couple hundred miles to the west where I was in college in Iowa in the late '60s it was a different story. The signal there was pretty good...but still not exceptional.

Wolf would come on the air around midnight which basically coincided with when the girls had to be back in their dorm rooms. The result was you could go up and down the halls in the guys' dorms and here XERF and Wolfman coming from just about every room. My favorite "moment" in all of this was him one night introducing a new 45. "You're gonna like this next record so much, you're gonna run out into the street and bang your head into a tree"!

The record? Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools". To this day I can't hear that without thinking of late nights listening to Wolf on XERF.

The program was always on tape. Or "The Man is on Tape" as the Richard Dreyfuss character in American Grafitti discovered.