Peter's DX Corner

The wonderful world of listening to the radio

Tag: Borinquen

QSL WXRF WAPA Radio Guayama 1590 kHz

March 23, 2025 / / 2 Comments

A QSL for WXRF WAPA Radio Guayama, Puerto Rico on 1590 kHz. The station is part of the WAPA Radio network. My report to admin@borinquenradio was answered within a day with a brief email reply from ING Jorge Blanco, vice president of WAPA Radio. I heard this station while staying on the island Curacao (721 km distance).

QSL email for WXRF WAPA Radio 1590 kHz, Guayama, Puerto Rico

WXRF is part of the WAPA Radio network which operates 7 AM and 7 FM stations across the island of Puerto Rico. It is interesting to see that the email address still reads WBQN which was the call sign of the station on 680 AM which I QSL-ed last year (see below). At the time the network was branded Borinquen Radio, with “Borinquen” referring to the native name for Puerto Rico.

Things have changed over the past year. WBQN on 680 AM, the most powerful station of the network, has its old call sign WAPA back since October 2024. And the network is now called WAPA Radio network. WAPA refers to original owners, the Asociación de Productores de Azúcar, or Puerto Rico Sugar Grower’s Association.
The WBQN call sign now belongs to the station on 1580 kHz by the way.

Call sign swap request. Funny thing is that it is not the Ponce 1260 AM station, but the smaller station in Aguadilla/Morovis on 1580 kHz that got the WBQN call sign.
2024 QSL emails for 680 kHz San Juan, which carried the WBQN call sign at the time.

QSL WBQN Borinquen Radio 680 kHz

April 12, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I received two short email confirmations to QSL WBQN Borinquen Radio 680 kHz. The station is located in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I received it during my stay on Curacao over a distance of 760 kilometers. Their website is not much more than a streaming portal, but offered a nice opportunity to “spruce up” my QSL emails 😜!

QSL emails from WBQN San Juan, Puerto

The original call sign of the station was WAPA, which refers to the Asociación de Productores de Azúcar, or Puerto Rico Sugar Grower’s Association. It’s current call sign WBQN and name “Borinquen Radio” refers to the native name for the island of Puerto Rico.

The station identifies frequently as “Borinquen Radio, catorze emisoras en Puerto Rico!”. And indeed they have 6 other AM transmitter sites, each with a separate call sign, and each with an FM transmitter as well, so 14 in total. With 10 kW WBQN is the most powerful, the other AM transmitters are typically 1-2.5 kW. “La Poderosa” means “the most powerful” in Spanish.

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