Europe certainly is familiar with FM stations operating below 88mhz, since many of them operate from 87.5 through through 87.9 and do so legally, with many of them propagating well during skip openings. But here in North America, it’s another story. Occasionally you will find a low powered unauthorized station playing music or just talking, but mostly all you hear between 87.5 and 88.0 is noise because those frequencies are off limits for broadcasting (except for the few Franken FMs on 87.75).

Mexico has had its share of unauthorized FM station over the years. The government has taken down many of them, but some still remain. Here is a list compiled by WTFDA member Jim Thomas, of Mexican unauthorized (pirate) FM stations that can be heard in much of the U.S. via sporadic E skip. If you know of any others, please let us know.

A little history:

• For decades, it was nearly impossible for indigenous or poor communities to get a legal FM license due to high costs and bureaucracy. This led to hundreds of “pirate” stations springing up to serve local needs—broadcasting in native languages like Nahuatl or Mixtec. These are stations that serve the Mayan nation population of Mexico and Guatemala.

• Organizations like the IFT (Federal Institute of Telecommunications) regularly conduct “operativos” (raids) to seize equipment. Between 2014 and 2018, hundreds of stations were dismantled. In modern times, the “operativos” apply strictly to the licensed bandwidth – 88 MHz to 108 Mhz. As a general rule, the IFT, actually better known as the RPC – which is the regulatory division for broadcast licenses – maintains a hands off policy with the indigenous and Christian radio stations that occupy the 87 MHz bandwidth. The government recognizes the stations and monitors them to make sure there isn’t any signal interference with licensed stations that operate at 88.1 MHz. Technically, they are unlicensed stations but are allowed to operate on the airwaves.