Cuaderno En Frecuencia: April 25

A seven-letter call sign is born; a station’s death comes earlier than expected

A Triple-A Grade for a New Call Sign

Mexico has its second seven-letter call sign on the FM band. The INE’s April national catalog update indicates that when Saltillo’s Radio Narro, approved last year to move to the FM band after 14 years of waiting, debuts on 107.3 MHz, it will not become XHSAL-FM. It will instead take the acronym of its owner, the Universidad Autónoma Agraria Antonio Narro, to become XHUAAAN-FM. The new station is not yet on air.

The other new call sign announced this week, amid a dearth of news on new stations, is a community radio station that will serve San Martín Azcatepec in Tecámac, State of Mexico. The Class D outlet will be XHSCQH-FM.

Other News from the INE

The national catalog update and other business at the April meeting of the Comité de Radio y Televisión also revealed:

• The legal term of the concession of XHLNC-FM Tijuana has concluded. Though EF had reported an expiration date of January 15, 2027, the RPC shows a termination of December 22, 2025, ten days after the December 12 meeting where the CRT ruled that no renewal action was permissible. The actual CRT proceeding from December has not been uploaded, so it is still unclear as to why this might be the case. One possibility is that the CRT brought forward the expiration to better match current policy. In any event, the station has been removed from the national catalog, though it is still broadcasting.
• The Jalisco state network has surrendered its TV station concessions in Puerto Vallarta and Ciudad Guzmán, which were re-awarded a few years ago after an untimely renewal application. No statewide concession conversion has been authorized for Jalisco TV, which continues to broadcast on XHGJG-TDT in Guadalajara.
• XEBBB-AM Guadalajara has been silent since late February owing to transmitter damage. The station had been dropped by ESNE Radio shortly before this incident.
• TV Azteca in Monclova, Coahuila, was briefly out of service in early March due to apparent copper theft leaving XHHC-TDT and XHMLA-TDT without transmission lines. The stations were off the air for several days before returning to service on March 5.

Elsewhere…

• Yesterday was debut day for XHSCDP-FM 99.9 Tacoaleche–Guadalupe, Zacatecas. TacuaRadio will provide community radio service to about 70,000 people, primarily in Tacoaleche and the eastern fringe of the Zacatecas metropolitan area.
• The long-running vencida XHZPC-FM 103.7 in Morelos is now being run as Irradia 103.7 by the Rentería family.