From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia XERF-AM
XERF-AM
XERF-AM The 1959 border blaster
City of Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila[1]
license
In 1959 a new group of investors, Ramon D. Bosquez and
Arturo Gonzalez formed a Texas corporation called Inter-
Broadcast Northern Mexico, southern United American Radio Advertising, Inc. which was located on
area States[2] Pecan Street in Del Rio, Texas. While the license of XERF
Branding La Poderosa (English: The Powerful) rested in the hands of Ramon D. Bosquez, a Mexican na-
tional, the actual control of the airtime and the manage-
Slogan Más cerca que nunca (English: Closer than
ever)
ment of the facilities in Ciudad Acuña, Mexico were un-
der the control of Inter-American Radio Advertising, Inc.
Frequency 1570 kHz[1] The Texas company purchased a 250,000 watt RCA
First air date 1947 transmitter to beam an omni-directional clear channel
signal on AM 1570, which originated some distance from
Language Spanish the old XERA facilities within three new prefabricated
Power 100,000 watts[1] concrete buildings with flat roofs. The sales brochure for
XERF offered this explanation about the operation of the
Class A
station (emphasis and wording shown as in the original
Facility ID 103943 text):
Owner Instituto Mexicano de la Radio[1]
There is, of course, one BIG difference between U.S.
Website www.lapoderosa.imer.com.mx and Mexican Stations, and that is a matter of
POWER; American Stations are limited a maximum
XERF-AM is a Mexican clear-channel station on 1570 kHz 50,000 watts ... a limitation that does not exist under
in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, near the United States border. Mexican regulation. X.E.R.F. for example, is li-
It gained fame as a 250-kilowatt border blaster owned by censed to operate on 250,000 watts power, and the
Ramon D. Bosquez and Arturo Gonzalez, used by famed Department of Communication and Public Works of
disc jockey Wolfman Jack. Now branded as La Poderosa
Poderosa, the Mexican Government has authorized a power
it is owned by the Instituto Mexicano de la Radio (IMER), increase to 500,000 watts. Such power could result
a Mexican public broadcaster. in serious interference if wave lengths were not
In earlier times, the station was operated under the strictly maintained, but the equipment with which
laws of Mexico by Ramón D. Bósquez. Once world-fa- X.E.R.F, operates assures its signal to stay "right on
mous, XERF commenced operations in 1947 using the old the beam." This is something constantly checked
facilities of John R. Brinkley’s XERA, which ceased broad- by FCC monitor stations, a degree of regulation by
casting in 1939. XERF was not a continuation of XERA. the U.S. Government alike that is imposed upon U.S.
Stations. Operating on a clear channel, X.E.R.F. is
1949 through the 1970s heard nightly in all parts of the fifty States in the
United States, Canada and Latin-America.
The facilities of the old XERA border blaster which had
been created by John R. Brinkley, were confiscated by Although reference was made to a power increase, the
the Mexican government in 1939 and the license for Villa station only had an RCA 250 kW transmitter.
Acuña remained silent until 1947. In that year a new li-
cense was granted to Ramon D. Bosquez who created a Paul Kallinger
new radio station originally using the old facilities of the The booming bass voice of Paul Kallinger was used to sell
defunct XERA. The station came on the air with a pow- many of the products on XERF. At night, his recorded
er of 100 kW. For many years the station made money spots between the different sponsored shows served as a
by selling its time after nightfall to American evangelists jingle break. Paul Kallinger remained on the Texas side
who broadcast in English to the United States. of the border and recorded his spots at a studio in Del
Rio, because he did not want to become embroiled with
the lawlessness that swirled around the XERF studio and
transmitter on the other side of the border. In between
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia XERF-AM
the different religious programs Paul Kallinger would tell lists, right-wing political groups and Black Nationalist
XERF listeners in various versions, that: messages from the Nation of Islam.
With the advent of FM stereo radio broadcasting, in-
It’s always good to know that we have some fine terest in the mono static signals of XERF began to wane
people out there listening to the most powerful and its signal was switched from the 250 kW RCA trans-
commercial voice in the world ... From alongside the mitter which kept breaking down, to a new 50 kW trans-
beautiful Rio Grande, this is XERF, Ciudad Acuña, mitter that was seldom run at full power.
Coahuila, Mexico. Our mailing address is Del Rio,
Texas. This is Paul Kallinger.
Brief rebirth in 1980s
To satisfy the Mexican authorities, the portion identify- In 1982 Bob Smith (Wolfman Jack), ran into a radio en-
ing the station’s call letters and the station’s location in gineer friend named Mike Venditti and he told Venditti
Mexico, would then be repeated in the Spanish language. that no one had been able to get XERF back on full power
with its old RCA 250 kW transmitter, because RCA did not
Wolfman Jack (1962 to 1964) have any manuals relating to the equipment. Venditti
With the birth of rock and roll and its promotion by disc then approached Gonzalez with a business proposition.
jockeys such as Alan Freed, a new interest was taken in
the unrestricted superpower airwaves that were avail- Love 16
able in Mexico. Alan Freed had originally called himself In exchange for restoring the main RCA transmitter to
the Moondog after hearing the name used by an experi- active duty, Venditti asked Gonzalez to lease him the
mental street musician in New York City. Freed not only daytime hours from 6AM to 9PM. Because the station was
adopted the name but used the recording of a howl to only operating on a fraction of power from the 50 kW
give his early broadcasts a unique character since he was transmitter, Gonzalez was only using the daytime hours
featuring African-American music that was getting a to rebroadcast programming in Spanish from the Mex-
great reception from America’s White teenagers. ican national network. After 9PM XERF reverted to its
One of Freed’s fans was Bob Smith, a disc jockey who sponsored format of mainly American religious pro-
also adopted the Moondog theme by calling himself Wolf- grams.
man Jack and adding his own sound effects. Smith took Venditti succeeded in getting the old transmitter to
his act to Inter-American Radio Advertising, who sent work and at first his new Love 16 station (a name taken
him to the studio and transmitter site of XERF. It was from the 1570 AM frequency), broadcast an English lan-
here that Wolfman Jack invented his own style of border guage format composed of a mixture of soft rock, oldies,
blasting by turning the airwaves into one long infomer- middle-of-the-road, country and Big Band music. This
cial featuring music and off-the-wall products. format did not sell and soon Love 16 was programming
Wolfman Jack gained a huge audience which brought a modern Christian music format. That did not work ei-
in enough money to not only pay the bills, but to cause ther.
bandits and corrupt officials to also take enough interest MIchael Venditti was a member of The Word
in taking over his promotions for themselves. As a result Outreach Center, a Non Denominational Church in Del
Smith began to pay his own security force to protect him, Rio during this time. The church was pastored by Michael
because although he lived in Del Rio, Texas, because of Kyle, a native of Del Rio and long time broadcaster him-
the Brinkley Act he had to actually broadcast from the self, having worked in both local radio stations and with
station itself in Ciudad Acuña in Mexico. Paul Kallinger. Michael Kyle worked an air shift at the
station in Mexico when the format went to all music.
Lawlessness and death Before Venditti pulled the plug on his "Love Radio",
According to Arturo Gonzalez there was a shootout in which eventually signed off the air, it attracted a lot of
1962 in which one person died. In another incident in publicity in the Texas press concerning the rebirth of
1964 two people died. No one was ever held accountable XERF as a real border blaster. Venditti was an excellent
for the deaths. It was following the second gun battle engineer and bringing the "giant’ back to life and been a
when Bob Smith decided to leave for XERB another bor-
XERB, long time dream of his.
der blaster located across the border in Tijuana, but with-
in earshot of Los Angeles, California. It was this station Bill Mack 1983
that George Lucas featured in the 1973 movie American Publicity about the rebirth of XERF with its 250 kW day-
Graffiti. time programming attracted the attention of Bill Mack.
Meanwhile XERF reverted to selling time according He had become famous for his all-night trucker’s show
to the old format devised by Dr. Brinkley. It featured paid which was heard at that time over the clear channel
programming, most of it from American fringe evange-
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia XERF-AM
50,000 watts signal of WBAP broadcasting from Fort the owners of a company attempting to revive the British
Worth, Texas. offshore station Wonderful Radio London. Headed by Ben
For a time Bill Mack’s shows began to go out from Toney, who had been the original program manager for
XERF between 2AM and 6AM Central Standard Time us- Big L in the 1960s, the new company also had links to
ing the 250,000 watts RCA transmitter and Venditti had Don Pierson who had founded the station in 1964. Ben
talked about creating a microwave link so that Bill Mack Toney and his business associate went to Del Rio and met
could broadcast live from his own studio in Fort Worth. with attorney Arturo Gonzalez in his law office which he
Unfortunately Vendetti’s own venture was not succeed- shared with Inter-American Radio Advertising, Inc.
ing and soon the antique transmitter began to break Arturo Gonzelez was of Mexican heritage and a U.S.
down again. When Vendetti left XERF no one else seemed citizen. He held an exclusive contractual arrangement
to have the ability to keep it on the air. When the primary with XERF’s silent license holders across the Rio Grande
transmitter failed, XERF constantly dropped back to its in Mexico. Arturo Gonzalez was able to enforce his own
50 kW standby which was then only run on a fraction of contract with the transmitter licensees because his Inter-
its power. American Radio Advertising, Inc., held the purse strings
There was some suspicion that part of the problem to all of the money paid by American advertisers for air-
came from the ancient RCA 250 kW transmitter and part time on XERF.
from a desire by the owners of XERF to cut electricity Built in to the costs of operation were not only the ex-
costs in order to increase their profit margin. Whatever penses incurred from the electrical bills and basic engi-
the true reason, the signal of XERF would boom in for a neering help, but from payments for the physical securi-
sustained period of time only to suddenly drop-off to a ty of the station as well as the attorney’s own profit mar-
prolonged whisper. This effect did not seem to be the re- gin. Little if anything was ever spent on studio, transmit-
sult of normal propagation problems, which often results ter or tower equipment.
when a sky wave signal is bounced off the ionosphere. After concluding the arrangement with Arturo Gon-
Then the signals result in a pattern of temporary but rep- zalez in Del Rio, Ben Toney and his associate then drove
etitious fading. When the XERF signal lost its strength it across the Rio Grande and on to the dirt roads and
seldom regained it. through the shacks that led to the small antiquated stu-
As a result of both the power problems and his in- dio and barn that housed the facilities of radio station
ability to do live land line or microwave programs from XERF. It appeared that with the new interest being shown
his home in North Texas, Bill Mack left XERF and contin- in the station from Texas, that it would be possible to re-
ued on WBAP. Incidentally, Bill Mack’s programming was store the signal of the station to a dependable high-pow-
pre-recorded in Fort Worth. He was never live on the air er strength using the old RCA 250.kW transmitter.
at XERF. Beginning on August 13, 1984 the Wonderful Radio Lon-
don Top 40 Show was heard nightly via taped programs
Texas Night Train which were recorded in England and flown to Texas. In
Another group from the Dallas and Fort Worth area then 1984 British music was once again "invading" the US
replaced Bill Mack with a nightly taped program called charts in a major way, just as it had in the 1960s. How-
the Texas Night Train Because the marathon shows which
Train. ever, the U.S. charts were about 12 months behind the
featured every type of popular music and comedy were British music charts and so Wonderful Radio London posi-
taped, there was no problem with a lack of live land line tioned itself as playing tomorrow’s hits today. To accommo-
connections. Weekend editions were also heard on some date the new schedule, the Texas Night Train was pushed
U.S. radio stations in Texas including KXOL an AM sta-
KXOL, back to allow the Big L show to serve as its lead-in begin-
tion in Fort Worth. ning at midnight Texas time. Omnibus weekend editions
The show took telephone requests which were then of the Big L program were also heard on several US radio
mixed into the following-night program tape. Its big fea- stations, including KXOL-AM in Fort Worth.
ture was the voice of the presenter who was identified The first of the daily Wonderful Radio London shows
as the "Night Hawk", but whose voice some mistook as a that were broadcast by XERF was introduced by the voice
clone of Wolfman Jack. He was heralded over the sound of John Lennon who was asked in 1964 what he thought
effects of a massive steam train which gave the impres- about American commercial radio. On the second night,
sion the Texas Night Train was chugging its way across which was the anniversary of the close-down of the orig-
Texas. inal Wonderful Radio London on August 14, 1967, airchecks
were played beginning with the last Breakfast Show that
Wonderful Radio London had been broadcast. The program for August 14, 1984 be-
gan with a record dedicated to Ben Toney in 1967, who
Another group that was also based in North Texas who
then cut in on the 1984 program to thank the DJ that
were aware of the Bill Mack venture on XERF and the re-
he had personally hired thirty years earlier. This dedi-
placement of his time slot by the Texas Night Train were
cation was followed by the voices of Mick Jagger, Ringo
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia XERF-AM
Starr and many others all bidding the station farewell. own age and the additional questionable legalities,
The theme of the show was The Beatles’ You say goodbye among other things, of brokering a contract that would
and we say hello announcing the new programming that involve yet another country (UK) would become more of
would begin the following night on August 15, 1984. a headache than he wanted at his time of life. Without his
Texas sales connection the silent owners of the ancient
Constant transmitter problems transmitter facilities also knew that the days of XERF
No sooner had the Wonderful Radio London Top 40 Show were finally over.
started, when the Texas Night Train folded. Its demise was When Arturo Gonzalez was forced out the picture due
due to the same problem that Bill Mack had encountered. to corruption and alleged fraudulent issues, the Mexicans
The Texas Night Train often disappeared into the static of were left with out-of-date broadcasting facilities and a
the AM band when the XERF transmitter power dropped market that wanted both FM stereo and MTV on cable
off. Advertisers would not buy time, and with mounting television. So they handed their license back to the gov-
debts, the Texas Night Train came to the end of its line. ernment of Mexico. By this time the preachers had also
Linking the owners of the Texas Night Train and Wonderful drifted to cable outlets such as Jim Bakker’s PTL and Pat
Radio London programs was KXOL in Fort Worth where Robertson’s CBN cable television networks.
both shows were also aired on weekends. KXOL was in
the process of being sold and Harold Glen Martin who lat- XERF under IMER
er returned to work at KXOL, was at that time the only
live on-air personality at XERF. Using a "hillbilly" accent On February 22, 1986, Instituto Mexicano de la Radio
under the name of "Billy Purl he presented a live coun-
Billy Purl", (IMER) (Spanish: Mexican Radio Institute), a Mexican na-
try music program to the fill dead air on XERF. He claims tionwide public radio broadcaster, purchased the assets
the honor of being the last live voice heard on XERF. Ac- of the Compañía Radiodifusora de Coahuila, S.A. The li-
cording to the Hot Springs, Ark., Sentinel Record newspa- cense was formally transferred to IMER on February 20,
per, Billy Purl’s gold lamé XERF jacket is part of the Rock 1987. However, once IMER acquired XERF, it was left with
’n’ Roll Hall of Fame’s border radio collection in Cleve- the old, broken transmitter, for which there were no
land, Ohio. parts, and a second, 50 kW transmitter, which was also
having problems, and XERF operated with only 15,000
Final proposition watts. With the acquisition of a new transmitter, XERF
raised its power to 100 kW in May 2004.[2]
To mark the exact date of its original start-up, Wonderful The goal of XERF under IMER is to provide a broad-
Radio London International (WRLI) was planning its own re- cast service that links migrating Mexicans to their orig-
turn as a full time radio station broadcasting from off inal communities.[2] The station’s programming consists
the coast of England beginning in December 1984. (This of news/talk programs and Mexican popular music.
was during the period in which both Radio Caroline and As of 2009, XERF is licensed for 100,000 watts domes-
Laser 558 were broadcasting successfully from ships off tically,[1] but is listed as a foreign station with 250,000
the British coast, though not without harassment from watts of power in the U.S. FCC databases.[3]
the authorities.) After the demise of The Texas Night Train
marathon program, the WRLI team approached attorney
Arturo Gonzalez in Del Rio with a new proposal. Since See also
XERF reception reports had been received from Europe • Border blaster — a list of super-power radio stations
when the power was maintained at 250,000 watts, it was located on the international border of Mexico facing
proposed that Wonderful Radio London would take over the the United States of America
entirety of the hours after midnight CET. This would cor- • John R. Brinkley gives more details about the career
respond to 6 AM Greenwich Mean Time or Universal Co- of this "doctor".
ordinated Time. Under the joint call sign of Wonderful Ra- • Wolfman Jack gives more details about the career of
dio London via XERF and operating as a full service station this disc jockey who was featured in the 1973 movie
at full power, Big L would be able to attract both the ad- American Graffiti.
ditional funding and advertising necessary to also make • Wonderful Radio London gives more details of the
the new offshore project into a commercial success. history of this station.
• Don Pierson gives more details about the career of
How commercial XERF faded this offshore broadcasting pioneer.
• ZZ Top celebrated the station in their song, "I Heard
away It On The X".
However time had run out for the super power XERF
when attorney Arturo Gonzalez was forced to retire. His
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia XERF-AM
References • Border Radio by Fowler, Gene and Crawford, Bill.
Texas Monthly Press, Austin. 1987 ISBN
[1] ^ "Infraestructura de Estaciones de Radio AM" (in 0-87719-066-6
Spanish) (PDF). Mexico City: Comisión Federal de • Big Beat Heat (Alan Freed and the early years of Rock
Telecomunicaciones. 2009-03-31. & Roll), by Jackson, John A. - Schirmer Books, New
http://www.cofetel.gob.mx/wb/Cofetel_2008/ York. 1991. ISBN 0-02-871155-6
Cofe_estaciones_de_am_in. Retrieved 2009-04-22. • Mass Media Moments in the United Kingdom, the
Via [1]. USSR and the USA (includes details of XERF in 1984),
[2] ^ "Cronología" (in Spanish). Ciudad Acuña: by Gilder, Eric. - "Lucian Blaga" University of Sibiu
Instituto Mexicano de la Radio. Press, Romania. 2003 ISBN 973-651-596-6
http://www.lapoderosa.imer.com.mx/
index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=148&Itemid=142.
Retrieved 2009-04-26.
External links
[3] Query the FCC’s AM station database for XERF. • La Poderosa (Spanish) — official IMER website
Retrieved 2009-04-25.
• Wolfman Jack’s old station howling once again. - History
Dallas Times Herald, January 2, 1983. - Article about • "The Best Darn Story of the Whole 20th Century" —
Bill Mack and the restoration of the old RCA 250 kW web page about XER, XERA, and XERF
transmitter by Mike Venditti • "The X Factor" — transcript of episode about the
• Del Rio to Honor Wolfman Jack - San Antonio Express- border blasters from NPR’s On the Media, 2008-07-04
News, June 16, 1995. - Article describing how Bob • Reference to "Billy Purl", the last live voice heard on
Smith (Wolfman Jack) came to Del Rio, Texas to meet XERF. — In a drop-down box Harold Glen Martin
Arturo Gonzelez and Ramon D. Bosquez and wanting ("Billy Purl") makes reference to five 50 kW
to know who was the owner of radio station XERF. transmitterss (=250 kW). However, XERF had a
Arturo Gonzelez who was 94 in 1995, recalls his first reasonably new CCA 50 kW transmitter and an
meeting with Bob Smith in 1963. Details confirm that ancient RCA 250 kW transmitter, as referenced above
XERF had a 250 kW transmitter. in a note by Bob Smith.
• The Roguish World of Doctor Brinkley by Carson, • Tribute to Mike Venditti who died on April 27, 1998
Gerald. - Rinehart, New York.1960.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=XERF-AM&oldid=462554874"
Categories:
• Radio stations of the Instituto Mexicano de la Radio
• Radio stations established in 1947
• Radio stations in Coahuila
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