by Dan Greenall
Decades ago, there were a number of high-powered AM radio stations operating from Mexico, just across the border from the southern United States. Here, they could bypass U.S. regulations, power limits, and censorship. Accordingly, these stations were nicknamed “border blasters.”
One of the better-known border blasters was radio station XERF in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila state, which was right across the river from Del Rio, Texas. They reportedly ran 250 kW of power and could be heard in many of the U.S. states and Canadian provinces.
To fund operations, XERF sold large blocks of nighttime airtime to American evangelists, faith healers, and mail-order merchants. On-air personalities included Wolfman Jack, who gained popularity playing rhythm-and-blues/rock-and-roll records unavailable on mainstream U.S. stations, and Paul Kallinger, who broadcast the overnight “graveyard” shift as “Your Good Neighbor Along the Way,” playing early country, hillbilly, and gospel music. Paul’s voice can be heard in the following brief recording from 1971:
Today, XERF is controlled by IMER (Instituto Mexicano de la Radio), the Mexican government’s public broadcaster, as it has been since 1986.
The station identifies as “La Poderosa” and serves the local border communities and Mexican migrants by broadcasting news, public information, and Regional Mexican music. Using a Kiwi SDR near Monterrey, Mexico, during my local evenings, I have observed that regular full station IDs are generally given in Spanish near the top of each hour. They include call letters, frequencies, and power used: 100,000 watts on AM (XERF) and 4000 watts on FM (XHRF). The attached recording of this was made on November 10, 2026, at 0103 UTC on 1570 kHz:
