I loved listening to the great stations I grew up with, including the out of town rock stations like WABC, WOWO and WLS. But being in Toronto, we missed a lot of some of the wildest radio on the planet because we were just too far away. 

I'm talking about so-called "Border Blasters," the Mexican radio stations that broadcast at excessive power to reach a lot of the United States. They didn't have to adhere to the rules and almost anything went on air. I remember reading a book on the subject and the stories were unbelievable. It was the 50s heading into the 60s and almost anything was allowed. 

In the article below, the author focuses on two of the more famous Mexican outlets, XERA and XERF. The former was the home of a discredited American doctor who insisted transplanting goat glands into people would cure their cancer. The latter was the place the world first heard Wolfman Jack. (In his autobiography, the Wolfman recounts having shoot-outs with would-be bandits as the station was on the air.)

Some of the radio was great. Some was awful. I'm just sorry we were too distant to sample it when Top 40 was young. But the story below gives you a small flavour of what it was like. 

Border blasters: The outlaw stations that changed radio