ARGENTINA: War of powers in the capital

Radio Gráfica, a station in the capital city broadcasting on 89.3 MHz, interviewed an FM Reconquista manager and published a long interview on its website
Radio Gráfica, a station in the capital city broadcasting on 89.3 MHz, interviewed an FM Reconquista manager and published a long interview on its website
Source

This is one of the many stories of small local stations being overwhelmed by the signal of a more powerful station. In FM, such situations occur when the airwaves are not regulated, but it is surprising if both stations are authorised by the regulator. It is happening in Greater Buenos Aires, the metropolitan area with almost 15 million inhabitants, comprising 15 municipalities and 48 districts.

FM Reconquista is the first and only licensed radio station run by an organised women’s association, and the only non-commercial one in the General San Martín department
Source

Since September 2020 FM Reconquista, a community station operating on 89.5 MHz in José León Suárez (7 km from the urban area) has beencoveredby Mucha Radio‘s signal. The distance between the two antennas is less than 14 km, but the difference in power is enormous: the community station, on the air since 1988, transmits with 1 kW, the commercial one with 40 kW. Yet both were authorised by Enacom (Ente Nacional de Comunicaciones), which regulates telecommunications in Argentina.

Mucha Radio is a commercial station that used to operate on 97.1 MHz and has moved to 89.5 MHz. It broadcasts from the Colegiales neighbourhood. The station is part of Grupo Octubre, a multimedia company that owns newspapers, medium wave and FM radio stations and a football team
Source

As long as Arpeggio FM (a classical music station, now closed) was on 89.5 MHz, there were no problems: its antenna was in a historic 18-storey skyscraper located at 651 Uruguay Street, 21 km from José León Suárez (7 km further than Mucha Radio’s), and according to FM Reconquista the station used a power of 5 or 6 kW (compared to the 20 kW authorised). This was explained by Margarita Palacio from the organisation that manages the station, in a lengthy interview that appeared on the website of Radio Gráfica, another station in the capital that broadcasts on a nearby channel, 89.3 MHz.

Share on

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Translate »