Tag Archives: Border Blasters

Radio Waves: Border Blaster Early Days, Resistance on the Radiowaves, Towers With Flared Skirts, and Palau Restores AM

Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!

In border radio’s early days, psychics and mystics ruled the airwaves (Mexico News Daily)

Charlatans originally built powerful ‘border blaster’ stations to evade scrutiny by US authorities

In radio’s early decades, among the oddball attractions found on the airwaves from 1920 to 1940 included a husband-and-wife team of psychics broadcasting from the U.S.-Mexico border under the stage names of Koran and Rose Dawn who became so popular that their extensive following helped them create a secondary income source: an organization called The Mayan Order.

Those who applied for membership and received its periodicals, the founders suggested, could harness the ancient Mesoamerican civilization’s secrets.

The pair were just two of the many psychics and other broadcasters of questionable integrity on the airwaves along the Rio Grande during radio’s beginnings. These characters built “border-blaster” stations of such epic size and scope that they could transmit from the Mexican side of the border into the United States.

Author John Benedict Buescher’s new book, Radio Psychics: Mind Reading and Fortune Telling in American Broadcasting, 1920–1940, unearths Koran and Rose Dawn’s forgotten story, as well as those of about 25 other border-blaster radio personalities on the Rio Grande who were heirs to a longtime American fascination with the occult.

“I was surprised how really dominant this stuff was in the early days of radio,” Buescher said. “Radio historians typically have just waved it off, not really focused on it, didn’t really take it seriously.” [Continue reading…]

Ukraine’s resistance on the radiowaves (DW Video)

Ukraine is fighting with more than weapons. The airwaves are also a frontier. Ukrainian computer specialists and radio operators have managed to jam Russian communications or intercept them. revealing some shocking details of the war’s brutality.

Click here to watch the view at DW’s website.

Why Well-Dressed Towers May Wear Flared Skirts (Radio World)

Cox, Dawson explore the benefits of umbrella-spoke feed for MW towers

Ben Dawson and Bobby Cox will talk about flared skirts at the NAB Show.

“A flared skirt is a set of symmetrically spaced cables around the tower, which attach electrically near the top of the tower, extend outward from the tower along a path similar to the top guy cables, and then turn back in toward the tower base at a point roughly halfway down the tower,” said Cox, senior staff engineer at Kintronic Labs.

“Insulators at this midpoint insulate the cables from ground. The cables terminate on an insulated feed ring encircling the tower base above ground level, similarly to a conventional skirt feed. The antenna is driven between this feed ring and RF ground. The resulting flared skirt takes the shape of a diamond, looking rather like umbrella spokes.”

These systems are used to provide a feed arrangement for grounded towers that is mechanically simple but has certain attractive aspects.

“The wide bandwidth characteristics of the flared skirt make these antenna designs extremely useful for multiplexing several AM stations onto a common antenna,” said Dawson, consultant engineer at Hatfield & Dawson. [Continue reading…]

Palau restores AM radio service (RNZ)

After erecting a new tower Palau’s state broadcaster has restored its AM radio service.

The previous AM tower was destroyed during Typhoon Bopha, in 2012.

Rondy Ronny, head of programming said that the new AM tower and radio service will benefit all the 16 states of Palau.

“A lot of the outlying states are not able to connect into the internet and just don’t have that capability or have very high tech phones like how we do here in Koror. People don’t expect people from Angaur, from Babeldaob to be on their phones all the time.”

Ronny said that the new tower will be crucial to Palauans during natural disasters. [Continue reading at RNZ…]

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Radio Waves: Radio and Education, Border Blasters, FM Switch Delayed per DCMS, and A Quick Temporary AM Antenna

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Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!

Can Radio Really Educate? (JSTOR Daily)

In the 1920s, radio was an exciting new mass medium. It was known for providing entertainment, but educators wondered if it could also be used for education.

It was mid-1922 and America was in the midst of the radio craze. Commercial broadcasting had emerged in a handful of cities in 1920, but at that time, few people had a receiving set—except for amateur radio operators, who knew how to build one. It wasn’t even called “radio” back then—newspapers referred to it as “radiophone” or “wireless telephone.” But only two years later, there were several hundred radio stations on the air, and you could purchase a radio in a store—although hobbyists still had fun trying to build their own, with varying degrees of success. Meanwhile, the word “radio” had become the common term for that wonderful new invention that everyone wanted in their home.

Today, we tend to take radio for granted; it is one of many ways to hear music or news or sports. But in 1922, radio was unique: it was the first mass medium to take people to an event in real time, and listeners were amazed by it. Suddenly, they could hear a popular orchestra coming through the radio set. Without leaving their home, they could listen to a baseball game, or an inspirational talk from a preacher; some stations even had the latest news headlines. In an era when traveling from one city to another could take hours (the popular Model T Ford had a top speed of 40-45 mph, and superhighways had not yet come along), listeners could travel by radio, hearing stations from distant cities. Before radio, only the wealthy could attend a concert featuring a famous vocalist, but now, anyone who had a receiving set could hear that singer’s music. And in an America that was still racially segregated, radio gave some musicians of color the opportunity to be heard by thousands of listeners. In magazines and newspapers, radio inspired “utopian hopes and bold predictions.” Writers referred to it as a cure for loneliness—especially for people living in rural areas or on the farm. It was also praised for helping the blind gain greater access to the world around them. More than one writer claimed radio would bring world peace, since everyone would unite around their favorite programs. And of course, as a sign of American progress, it was something no home should be without, not even the White House: President Harding was an enthusiastic radio fan, and had a set installed near his desk, so he could listen whenever he wanted to. [Continue reading…]

Psychics once ruled the airwaves thanks to the Texas-Mexico border and the magic of radio (KUT)

A new book includes details of how powerful radio stations along the border helped former vaudeville actors reach larger audiences.

In the 1920s and ’30s, some of the most popular radio programs in the United States featured radio psychics. The most successful among them made hundreds of thousands of dollars reading the minds and predicting the futures of eager listeners. To do it, they took advantage of a new and mysterious medium: radio. Continue reading →

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Texas Standard explores the rich history of outlaw radio

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Guy (KC5GOI), for sharing a link to the following (brilliant–!) radio feature from the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard For November 23, 2018

On this Black Friday, we explore how marketing created a legacy of pirates in the air over Texas – affecting music culture and politics. It’s a special edition of The Texas Standard.

With shopping season officially underway, we often think of hyper-commercialism as a creation of Madison Avenue. But one could make the case that America’s hype machine got its start along the border of Texas and Mexico, with a million watts of power leading to a revolution of outlaw broadcasters that’s still making a mark today.

You may have noticed that at the beginning of most of our programs, we say “no matter where you are, you’re on Texas Standard time.” How that came about it no accident. It’s a reference to something we haven’t touched on before here on The Standard – a callback to a time where no matter where you were, a particular sound with its roots along the Texas border, blanketed the country and changed the way we heard music, received distant messages and experienced media. It was outlaw radio – programming considered too dangerous for prime time. That’s the subject of today’s special edition of The Texas Standard:

– The Border Blasters’ Influence: how enormously powerful radio stations broadcasting from the border between the 1930s to the 70s, influenced musicians and music itself.

– Goat Glands And Freedom From The Law: Medical huckster and patent medicine seller J.R. Brinkley made his fortune selling his services via border radio.

– Selling Flour And Politics: In the 1930s, W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel used radio, and western swing pioneer, Bob Wills, to market flour. Then, he used the same technique to run for Texas governor, and later senator. He won both those races.

– The British Get Invaded: In the middle of the swingin’ 60s, a group of Texas radio “blasters” used an old minesweeper to beam “Radio London” into England, subverting the BBC’s monopoly on the airwaves.

– Typewriter Rodeo: A Radio Dream.

– Modern Pirates: The days of outlaw radio aren’t all in the past. The FCC has cracked down on those who run stations in defiance of the law, but broadcasters persist, especially in an era when the means of making radio are cheaper than ever.

Click here to listen to this feature at the Texas Standard or Soundcloud.

I should add that if you find the topic of border blasting fascinating, I encourage you to check out the book Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam which tells the story of Dr. John Brinkley and eventually (of course) blasting massive signals across the US/Mexico border.