Radio stations from Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz

Coatzacoalcos sits where the river meets the Gulf, an industrial port town in southern Veracruz that has always felt closer to Tabasco and the Isthmus than to the state capital. That geography shaped its radio: a small, scrappy market where stations changed hands often, borrowed formats from bigger cities, and somehow kept transmitting for nearly eight decades.

If you grew up in Coatzacoalcos — or your parents did — and you now live in the US, the good news is that the city's main stations stream live, and hearing them again is a couple of clicks away. This guide walks through the real history of radio in the city, station by station, then covers what's on the dial today, the genres you'll hear, and how the time difference affects your listening.

A station older than most listeners: from XELL-AM to FUSIÓN 90.1

The oldest radio story in Coatzacoalcos actually begins in the city of Veracruz. 90.1 La Morena FM, known on air as FUSIÓN, traces its roots to XELL-AM 1430, which received its first concession on August 23, 1946 and went on the air that October 20. That makes it one of the older stations in the state.

The early decades were a story of small owners and growing power:

• 1946: Dolores G. Ferreira puts XELL on the air with 250 watts.
• 1951: The station is sold to Carlos Ferráez Matos; two years later, Julio César Orozco y García buys it.
• 1960s: Daytime power climbs to 5,000 watts.
• 1967–1968: Esperanza Navarro de Núñez acquires the station and transfers it to Radio Jarocha.
• 1980s: Power drops back to 500 watts, then returns to 5,000 daytime and 1,000 nighttime in the 2000s.
• 2010: The AM-to-FM migration is authorized, and the signal moves to 90.1 FM.

Along the way the station was known as Radio Onda on 1430 AM, then as Latido on 90.1 FM, and today as Fusión under Grupo Pazos Radio. The format is a genuinely mixed bag: classic and modern pop in Spanish and English, rock, classic hits, hip-hop, romantic music, reggaetón and urban. If you like radio that refuses to pick a lane, this is your station.

The frequency that changed identities: XHTD-FM, today Soy FM

If XELL's story is about one long lineage, 101.7 Soy FM is about reinvention. XHTD-FM received its concession on September 27, 1979 under Octavio Tena Álvarez del Castillo, and since then it has worn more names than almost any station in Veracruz.

• 1979–1986: Launches as a Spanish and English pop station called Más FM.
• 1986: Sold to Frecuencia Modulada de Coatzacoalcos and folded into Grupo FM.
• 1999: Becomes Vox FM, borrowing the brand from XEX-FM in Mexico City.
• 2004: Joins the Los 40 Principales network, one of the biggest pop brands in Latin America.
• 2011: Leaves Los 40 in July and flips to Mar FM in September, an English classic-music brand used by XHPB-FM in the city of Veracruz.
• 2015: Grupo FM splits into two companies from the same family — Grupo FM and Radio Networks. XHTD lands at Radio Networks alongside XHFTI-FM in Córdoba and XHRN-FM in Veracruz, and becomes the grupero-tropical station Más Latina.
• 2016: Sold to Grupo Radio Digital for 71 million pesos; the concession moves to Impulsora de Radio del Sureste and the station takes the national Exa FM format.
• 2021: On May 1, most GRD stations drop their MVS Radio franchise brands, and XHTD becomes Soy FM with its own pop format.

For listeners, that history explains something you'll notice right away: Soy FM still sounds polished and big-city, because it spent years as a franchise of national networks. Today it plays pop in Spanish and English under Grupo Radio Digital.

Death and resurrection: XHNE-FM and Los 40

The newest chapter in Coatzacoalcos radio is also the most dramatic. LOS40 100.1, XHNE-FM, got its concession on October 5, 1979, just weeks after XHTD, under owner Rosa María Baptista y van der Elst.

In April 1994 the station was sold to ACIR, raised its power to 52 kW, and adopted La Comadre, a regional Mexican format it would keep for 28 years — an eternity in Mexican radio. Then came the shock: on June 28, 2022, Grupo ACIR shut down both XHNE-FM and XHOM-FM, pulling XHNE off the air after 43 years and cutting 17 jobs. The same week, XHDQ-FM in San Andrés Tuxtla also went dark.

But the story didn't end there. On November 21, 2022, new operators brought XHNE and its sister station XHOM-FM 107.5 back on the air, with XHNE taking the Los 40 brand — a format that had actually been in Coatzacoalcos before, on XHGB-FM 103.5 until 2017. In 2024, Coatza Top became the concession holder. Today it's the city's pop station, carrying the Los 40 format from Radiópolis.

The stations to know today

The catalog lists six live streams from Coatzacoalcos, and in practice they break down into three signals under different listings:

• 90.1 La Morena FM / LA MORENA FM 90.1 — FUSIÓN, the everything station: pop, rock, classics, urban, romantic.
• 101.7 Soy FM / SOY FM 101.7 — current pop hits in Spanish and English.
• LOS40 100.1 / 100.1 LOS40 — the Los 40 countdown format, top 40 pop with network shows.

A practical tip: if one stream link doesn't load, try the alternate listing for the same station. Streams in smaller markets can be unstable, and it's common for a station to appear under two names in a directory.

What Coatzacoalcos listens to

The genre mix in the catalog tells you a lot about the city's taste. Rock en Español and Latin pop lead, with four stations each in the local listing, while tropical, regional Mexican and cumbia each show two. That split between rock and pop on one side and tropical-grupero on the other is very southern Veracruz: a port city with oil-industry money, young listeners who grew up on national pop networks, and a deep-rooted love for cumbia and tropical dance music.

If any of that sounds like home, browse by genre:

• Rock en Español — Soda Stereo, Caifanes, Zoé and the classics.
• Pop Latino y Éxitos — today's chart hits.
• Tropical — salsa, merengue and son.
• Regional Mexicano — banda, norteño and grupero.
• Cumbia — the sound of everyCoatzacoalcos family party.

How to listen from the US

Coatzacoalcos is on Central Standard Time year-round — Veracruz does not observe daylight saving time, so in summer it lines up with US Central, and in winter it's an hour ahead of US Central (same as US Eastern during DST transitions, effectively). The simplest way to think about it:

• Summer (US on DST): same clock as Chicago and Houston.
• Winter: one hour ahead of Chicago, same as New York.

That matters for morning shows and countdowns. If you want Soy FM or Los 40's drive-time programming on your commute in Texas or Illinois, tune in during your own morning drive — you'll catch the same hours. Evening shows in Coatzacoalcos start when most of the US is having dinner or later.

A few habits that help:

• Open the Veracruz state page and save your favorites so a dead stream doesn't leave you searching from scratch.
• Local news and talk segments air in the morning local time; music blocks dominate afternoons and nights.
• Sunday mornings and holidays are when regional and tropical programming tends to dominate — good for a nostalgic cumbia session.

Explore beyond Coatzacoalcos

Coatzacoalcos is one of 44 live stations listed for the state of Veracruz, so if you want the broader jarocho sound — including the big stations of the port of Veracruz and Xalapa — start at Veracruz.

From there, the rest of Mexico is a click away. Mexico City has 350 stations, by far the deepest catalog, and it's where most of the national formats you hear in Coatzacoalcos — Los 40, pop networks — originate. Monterrey and Guadalajara are the other two big radio cities, with 52 and 59 stations respectively. Sinaloa has 67 stations, Jalisco state 54, Chihuahua 54, and Nuevo León 41.

Or just go straight to the full Mexico directory and wander.

Why local radio still matters here

What the history of Coatzacoalcos radio really shows is resilience. A station born in 1946 that survived power cuts, sales and a band migration. A frequency that reinvented itself six times in forty years. A station turned off after 43 years and switched back on within months because listeners and operators wanted it back.

When you stream Coatzacoalcos from a kitchen in Houston or an apartment in Chicago, you're hearing the same voices your family heard on Calle Iglesias or along the malecón. That continuity is exactly what local radio does best — and it's live, right now, one time zone away.