Re: Stations on Texas/Mexico border

Starter of this subject: Lou
Last post in this subject: 9/29/1999
Messages in this subject: 5

Lou 9/29/1999
5 replies
Check the following link for a short summary of Border Radio in the 20's (Dr Brinkley style), as well as a possible source for the book of the same name.

Lou

Jim Hilliker 10/28/1999
3 replies
Yes, excellent book..Too bad it's out of print...A co-worker at the radio station I work for has a copy of it in his office. I read it about 8 or 9 years ago.

The link to the story on Brinkley was good...and yes, XER, which became XERA and evolved into XERF, was the station Wolfman Jack was at for a time, when that station had 250,000 watts. The sad part is, the old XERF transmitter hasn't been up to 250 kw since the early '80s, when it broke down and nobody could fix it..Use to hear it quite loudly in the '60s and '70s on 1570 kHz./AM

The book, Border Radio, details the history of several other "border blasters", stations with transmitter power higher than the 50,000 watt limit in the U.S.A., which could be heard all over North America, espeically in the '30s and '40s...But XER/XERA were the most famous.

Jim Stokes 7/19/2000
2 replies
Wolfman Jack talks extensively about his experiences with the Mexican station located across the border from Del Rio, Texas. Can't recall the call letters. Way back in my farm boy days, I used to pick up an XELO or XERF from Del Rio, Texas. I do clearly remember the anncr hitting the --

DEL RIO, TAX-EHS!

Like that. Anyway, New York City born Bob Smith (yeah, his REAL NAME) landed somehow at that same station years later. Wolfman Jack/Bob Smith talks about opening a bank account in the Del Rio bank wth CASH IN HAND! He put all the radio preachers that were on before his all-night show on a cash-basis. And upped the rates. So those "autographed plictures of Jesus Christ" kept a-comin. And the hits kept on coming all night, as the alias Wolfman Jack did a hot pop record show. He never revealed that it was the businesman Bob Smith by day who did the show.

The xmtr was run on a three-phase AC power system that was run on GAS engines. Horriblly noisy. They got their licens from the Mexican govt to run more power than the 50,000 watt US stations.

His kingdom came crashing down when the US and Mexican govt got together to reduce power on such stations. Wolfman then went to LA to do his show. Then went to over the Mexican border from California.

Full details in his book. But I surely recall the weight-loss hawker on the Del Rio station. Some people in my home town bought the pills. One lady left the pills in her kitchen window. The hot sun made the worms come out of the pills. Tapeworks WILL help you lose weight.

And the baby chickens for sale. Well, they didn't say the were ALIVE!

JIm

Nate Williams 7/28/2000
0 replies
I loved to tune in XERF, Del Rio TEXAS, and wow did it put out one powerful signal into St. Louis in the late 1940s, early 50s. What fascinated me most were the medicine men like commercials. They had one for Charles Antell Formula Number Nine which could be purchased for practically nothing and could cure practically everything. Interestingly enough a few years later I think it came back as a hair tonic. But the neat guy was THE BLADE MAN who gave his pitch for razor blades that were sold 100 for one dollar, "send one dollar to Blade, thats B-L-A-D-E, XERF, Del Rio, Texas. I was hypnotized by all the pitchmen that sold their stuff.
Jim Stokes 9/21/2000
0 replies
I should have added that information I had comes from Wolfman Jack's BOOK. Failed to mention is was in his BOOK that came out before he passed away.

More on the tex/mex border stations. Some lady from my hometown bought the diet pills hawked on one of the stations. She put them in the window in the hot sun one day. She came back and there were WORMS crawling out of the pills!

In Bob Smith/Wolfman Jack's book, he talks about putting all the radio preachers on his station on a cash payment basis. And pay up-front they did!

The xmtr had a three-phase transformer input. No such thing in Mexico from the power company. So the third leg of the three-phase was run from a gas engine. Heh. The stations on the border were not FCC regulated by power. And the Mexican govt didn't care. So the stations ran an enormous amount of power. At least 100,000 watts. Later on, Mexico and the US joined in a treaty to limit xmtr power output to 50,000 watts. :)

Jim Stokes

Don Stoffel 12/13/2000
0 replies
See my response to Dave Chamberlain's post, "Chicago Radio", of 7-10-00, ante. Addendum: my youngest son was an Air Force instructor pilot at Laughlin AFB, located at DelRio. Upon visiting him, we could see the towers of the Mexican station across the river. He got out in May and now works for Northwest, but goes back several days per month for reserve duty. Was kind of eerie to recall the stuff that used to come out of those an