Blasting Across The Border

I enjoy listening to the radio, especially sports radio. I have been given a lot of grief from my friends for listening to sports and not music. Being that sports radio nine times out of ten is on the AM side of things I tend to listen to AM more than FM. With this being the case there is something that has always bothered about AM radio, especially after dark.

After the sun goes down, it always seems like when I am listening to AM radio I hear some interference. When I was younger I was told that it came from Mexican stations upping their power. Now that I have a forum where I can investigate it I decided that this would be a great opportunity to figure it out. I am writing a bigger story for the Border Beat website about this issue, so stay tuned to Border Beat for the story.

The radio stations that do this are called Border Blasters. These stations do this so that they are able to avoid certain regulations from the FCC. In the 1930’s radio stations would go into Mexico and then “blast” their wattage so that it is able to be picked up in America. While this still continues, the practice pretty much stopped in the mid-80’s with English speaking stations being blasted across the border because of an agreement signed between the US and Mexico.

On November 9, 1972 the US and Mexico signed an agreement that the frequency on FM stations are set to 108 MHz Band. This was mutually agreed upon by both countries and was put in place so that American radio stations have to follow the regulations set in place by the FCC. This is why you more frequently hear Mexican radio stations interfering with AM radio stations. AM radio stations are being listened to less and less by listeners, so this is why the agreement was put in place for FM stations but not AM ones.

When I interned at an AM radio station in Tucson (which will go unnamed) we would always get complaints from listeners, usually older ones, about not being able to hear the station in Oro Valley area. When I asked the show host about why this was he told me that they had to decrease their signal’s power about 30 minutes after sundown, due to FCC regulations. He was not really sure as to why that was the rule but that was just what they had to do.

The history of border blasters is very interesting and my story will be more in-depth. The Modesto Radio Museum has a great history of border blasters along with a great history of radio in general.

Until next time, Namaste.