Thieves Steal 200ft Tower From Alabama Radio Station (theguardian.com) 142
A radio station in Alabama has been forced to temporarily shut down after thieves stole a 200ft radio tower. The Guardian reports: WJLX, a station in Jasper, Alabama, was ordered to go off air by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) after thieves took the station's AM tower last week, the Guardian first learned. "In all my years of being in the business, around the business, everything like that, I have never seen anything like this," WJLX's general manager, Brett Elmore, told the Guardian. "You don't hear of a 200ft tower being stolen," he added.
Elmore said the theft was first discovered last week by a landscaping crew that regularly manages the area nearby the tower, WBRC reported. "They called me and said the tower was gone. And I said, 'What do you mean, the tower is gone?'" Elmore said. The radio tower was previously located in a wooded area, behind a local poultry plant. Elmore said that thieves had cut the tower's wires and somehow removed it. Thieves also stole the station's AM transmitter from a nearby building.
For the small radio station, the theft has had a significant impact. Elmore said the station's property was not insured. Replacing the tower could cost the station anywhere between $100,000 to $150,000, which is "more money than we have," Elmore said. The FCC also notified WJLX on Thursday morning that the station would have to go off the air because of the theft. While WJLX still has its FM transmitter and tower, it is not allowed to operate its FM transmitter while the AM station is off the air. "I had a guy from Virginia call yesterday and say, 'You know, I think a helicopter grabbed [the tower],'" Elmore said. He's hoping that surveillance video from the nearby poultry plant or witnesses nearby can help figure out who stole the station's tower.
Elmore said the theft was first discovered last week by a landscaping crew that regularly manages the area nearby the tower, WBRC reported. "They called me and said the tower was gone. And I said, 'What do you mean, the tower is gone?'" Elmore said. The radio tower was previously located in a wooded area, behind a local poultry plant. Elmore said that thieves had cut the tower's wires and somehow removed it. Thieves also stole the station's AM transmitter from a nearby building.
For the small radio station, the theft has had a significant impact. Elmore said the station's property was not insured. Replacing the tower could cost the station anywhere between $100,000 to $150,000, which is "more money than we have," Elmore said. The FCC also notified WJLX on Thursday morning that the station would have to go off the air because of the theft. While WJLX still has its FM transmitter and tower, it is not allowed to operate its FM transmitter while the AM station is off the air. "I had a guy from Virginia call yesterday and say, 'You know, I think a helicopter grabbed [the tower],'" Elmore said. He's hoping that surveillance video from the nearby poultry plant or witnesses nearby can help figure out who stole the station's tower.
More fake news? (Score:3)
This sounds like the toothbrush botnet story https://it.slashdot.org/story/... [slashdot.org]. Tomorrow we are going to find out there is no stolen tower.
Re:More fake news? (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly it's a practice run for stealing the Eiffel Tower, which is only 5x taller.
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Clearly it's a practice run for stealing the Eiffel Tower, which is only 5x taller.
They could steal this 23.6' model [sky.com] made from 700,000+ matchsticks -- only took the guy 8 years to make it. Guinness World Record just awarded it the world's tallest structure using matchsticks, after first denying it.
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Best to stick to the real Eiffel Tower...
Re: More fake news? (Score:2)
what scrap yard will take an big tower? (Score:2)
what scrap yard will take an big tower?
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what scrap yard will take an big tower?
More to the point, what scrap yard will take a big tower, intact and potentially hanging from a helicopter, and without question?
Nothing like reinforcing that mafia stereotype about waste disposal.
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Most privately owned helicopters don't have the payload capacity to carry more than a few feet of a steel tower.
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Most privately owned helicopters don't have the payload capacity to carry more than a few feet of a steel tower.
This. I was honestly hoping someone here would be able to give an estimate on the weight of such a tower, because I wouldn’t be surprised if it far exceeded pretty much any helo rating.
It also seems quite insane to attempt a theft like that. Even 50’ of tower would be one hell of a load to manage, with a serious pucker factor if they pulled off the theft at night.
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what scrap yard will take an big tower?
Yes. Scrap yards are usually run by moderately high functioning scoff laws that deal in all kinds of stolen metal.
Thinking about this, it's not that astonishing. A couple battery operated grinders to cut the guy lines, knock it over, separate the sections and load it on a bit flag trailer.
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If it's a Rohn 45G - it's made of 20 ten-foot sections that weigh 70 lbs each. So 1,400 lbs. Scrap steel is ~$200/gross ton - making its scrap value $125. Once something that tall hits the ground - it's unusable as a radio tower anymore as it'll be too mangled.
Seems like an awful lot of work to make $125 (not to mention the safety hazards). But I suppose it could have been done in a couple of hours to cut it up with a sawzall (it's tubular steel), load it on a landscape trailer and drop it off at a scrap
Re:what scrap yard will take an big tower? (Score:5, Funny)
Officer: So... Jimmy... I cant help but notice you just got yourself a new 200ft radio antenna in your yard that looks suspiciously like the one that mysteriously vanished from the local radio station...
I'm not saying it was aliens (Score:5, Funny)
But it was aliens.
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I think it was that mean R.J. Fletcher.
He managed to get his non-affiliated competition off the air. this time.
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There’s nothing quite like a good conspiracy about aliens traveling across the universe, to find themselves threatened and attacking an AM radio tower.
Even we humans barely give a shit at this point.
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Pretty sure it was citizens.
Re:I'm not saying it was aliens (Score:4, Funny)
You just KNOW Taylor Swift was involved!
(ducks)
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Sacre Bleu! The martians are destroying the Eiffel (Score:2)
Sacre Bleu! The martians are destroying the Eiffel Tower!
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No insurance? (Score:3)
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I'm sure it was phenomenally inexpensive.
The whole thing about stealing it with a helicopter sounds fishy. A 200' tower would be fairly heavy, beyond the capabilities of most helicopters.
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40' tower is 125lb of Aluminum
72' steel tower is 1000lb
200' towers vary in weight from 6,000 to 8,000 lbs. It gets exponential as you go taller because of physics, but most helicopter can lift 4 ton
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It gets exponential as you go taller because of physics
In theory, maybe, but in practice, short towers often weigh more per foot than tall towers, because they're often built more like the Eiffel Tower with fewer guy wires, whereas taller towers are usually straight vertical towers with guy wires.
200' towers vary in weight from 6,000 to 8,000 lbs.
And that's actually about the point where it stops making sense to use a pyramid-shaped tower. Above about 250 feet or so, the weight actually goes down.
To build a 500-foot tower you might use 50 of these 10-foot sections [ispsupplies.com] at a weight of 17.5 pounds per foot, or 8,750
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Guide wires are a different thing, used to guide something along a path. Guy wires are stressed wires supplying lateral stability to a structure.
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The whole thing about stealing it with a helicopter sounds fishy. A 200' tower would be fairly heavy, beyond the capabilities of most helicopters.
This was a guyed tower, they aren't heavy. And even if it wasn't the payload of a helicopter installation can trivially be 10 tonnes. Why do I say 10 tonnes? Because that's literally the max weight I was quoted for a small helicopter lift of a non-guyed tower for a project I installed in Australia, and that quote was from a local company for whom radio towers and electrical masts was the main business.
Larger towers require specialist companies with bigger helicopters, or they are sectioned in pieces. Then i
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Quoting a different article, no.
"Unfortunately, the site was not insured. We're a small market station, but we're going to get back, and we're going to be back on the air as soon as we possibly can," Elmore said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alabama-station-disbelief-200-foot-radio-tower-stolen-rcna137877 [nbcnews.com]
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It’s a mostly worthless structure that has probably stood in place for decades.
Given corporate insurance costs, would you really look to insure something that is basically worthless outside of a scrap yard? I mean, if you were being honest about it?
Doesn’t surprise me at all. No act of God proved harmful to that point.
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It’s a mostly worthless structure that has probably stood in place for decades.
Given corporate insurance costs, would you really look to insure something that is basically worthless outside of a scrap yard?
Should you insure something that could come down suddenly in a bad wind storm and A. not be usable, B. destroy one of your buildings, and C. kill people? Yeah. That's part of the cost of staying in business.
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Theft insurance for this is probably trivial.
The only time insurance would be considered “trivial” is if it’s proven trivial to make a claim and receive prompt compensation.
Let me know if you find an insurance company that behaves that way. Never seen or heard of one myself.
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Or D. Consider how often that has ever happened in the history of radio towers, and insure according to risk and reality.
No matter how much insurance you have, it’s never enough to mitigate all risk, so setting a goal of cover EVERY scenario is going to get prohibitively expensive.
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basically worthless outside of a scrap yard?
You don't insure it based on its value to someone else. You insure it based on it's value to you.
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Well, cost would be more accurate. Replacement cost in this case. The material scrap value might be a few hundred dollars. But it's going to take a lot of work (labor, $$) to set that thing up.
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This wasn't an act of god. Did they just not have an insurance policy for their vital infrastructure?
Nope. From TFA:
For the small radio station, the theft has had a significant impact. Elmore said the station’s property was not insured. Replacing the tower could cost the station anywhere between $100,000 to $150,000, which is “more money than we have”, Elmore said.
Re:No insurance? (Score:4, Informative)
For the small radio station, the theft has had a significant impact. Elmore said the station’s property was not insured. Replacing the tower could cost the station anywhere between $100,000 to $150,000, which is “more money than we have”, Elmore said.
That's one part that seems seriously sus. You can buy a new 250-foot cellular tower [3starinc.com] for a little over $16k, and AM towers aren't that different cost-wise, at least for the tower part. Labor can't possibly be 90% of the installation cost. It's not exactly rocket science. You pretty much have somebody climb up the thing with a safety harness, attach a hoist, pull the next segment up alongside the previous one, then bolt it on, attaching guy wires at the appropriate spots.
More realistic estimates [broadcaste...ering.info] are O($120 to $160) per foot., or $30k to $40k to replace a 250-foot tower, and only half that much if the old ground isolation hardware is still there and usable.
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I'll note that more than just the antenna was stolen.
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For the small radio station, the theft has had a significant impact. Elmore said the station’s property was not insured. Replacing the tower could cost the station anywhere between $100,000 to $150,000, which is “more money than we have”, Elmore said.
That's one part that seems seriously sus. You can buy a new 250-foot cellular tower [3starinc.com] for a little over $16k, and AM towers aren't that different cost-wise, at least for the tower part. Labor can't possibly be 90% of the installation cost. It's not exactly rocket science. You pretty much have somebody climb up the thing with a safety harness, attach a hoist, pull the next segment up alongside the previous one, then bolt it on, attaching guy wires at the appropriate spots.
More realistic estimates [broadcaste...ering.info] are O($120 to $160) per foot., or $30k to $40k to replace a 250-foot tower, and only half that much if the old ground isolation hardware is still there and usable.
Labour is a lot more than you think, plus planning, preparation (you cant just put a 250ft tower onto dirt), so on and so forth. Even if the existing foundations can be reused, its still going to be a shitload of labour and parts. Plus do you think a local AM station has US$16K just lying around? In Alabama.
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The cost estimate could also be a WAG by somebody because they haven't put out the bid requests yet.
Or the cost is for "priority" service, not next year.
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That's one part that seems seriously sus. .
My guess would be a local reporter made an error, in that the $100,000 - $150,000 is the cost of the tower and the transmitter combined. It is not that the reporter is likely to have a long history of reporting on other radio stations losing an antenna and transmitter to more fully understand the details of running an AM radio station.
A 1kW AM transmitter will cost you ~$10k, I think. That's not exactly a high-power station. :-) However, that could maybe be the cost of replacing everything that got stolen, wires that got cut, etc., plus having engineers test its output at various places nearby and verify that it meets the ERP requirements, etc. I still wouldn't think it would be that high, but I've never put one in from scratch before, so I could be wrong. :-)
The bigger problem is that it takes a long time to get a replacement transmi
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The FCC shut them down entirely (both AM and FM) because the licensed purpose of the AM band was basically to re-broadcast it to their spot on the FM band. Sure, it doesn’t make much sense with the license that way, but I would argue I only need to procure an AM transmitter strong enough to reach my FM transmitter.
Or at least barely strong enough to play the FCC licensing game. We don’t really have to guess as to which band was likely far more popular to tune in on.
Pirate radio (Score:3)
A return to pirate radio of the 1960s.
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Sounds Fishy So I Looked Into It (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.rocketcitynow.com/... [rocketcitynow.com]
Here is an actual local story about it.
the story seems fishy. (Score:3)
When you start looking at the weight of one of these towers a helicopter seems unlikely. They are heaving enough that you need a big expensive hard to find helicopter and a pilot to fly it.
Looking at the weight it also appears that a scrapper would need to be very skilled and this would take some time to steal.
And it is not going to happen fast enough that someone does not notice the AM station is offline and goes to see what broken and finds the tower in the process of being stolen.
So this story smells funny.
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Well, it was out in the woods. Very patient meth heads.
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Re:the story seems fishy. (Score:5, Funny)
The large Mormon cathedral for the Puget Sound region is across the valley from our house. When it was built they put a golden statue of their angel Moroni on top of it. Some years later (in the '80s IIRC) a crew arrived and put up scaffold with a work order from Salt Lake to take down Moroni to clean him. A few weeks later the cathedral queried Salt Lake as to when the statue would be return and reinstalled, only to find that headquarters had no idea what they were talking about.
The current Moroni is only gold plated.
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Classic example of no one asking questions as long as you make sure to look like you belong. The construction work version of a lab coat and clipboard - a hi-vis vest and a hard hat.
Re:the story seems fishy. (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked in physical security, key cards, cameras, alarm points, that sort of thing, for 17 years. One of the demos that we would occasionally do for prospective customers is show up with a uniform and a ladder under one arm, and a tool bag in the other. Maybe a box under one arm for good measure. People will not only badge the door to a secure space open for you, they'll hold it while you go through. This was especially effective at peak hours like shift changes or lunch time.
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AM stations often have "operating hours" because their signals can exceed their allocated footprint at night, for example. Many AM stations simply have to shut down at night because propagation is such that there will be a more powerful station that will overlap in the region.
So this results in smaller AM stations going off the air ov
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When you start looking at the weight of one of these towers a helicopter seems unlikely.
It was a guyed tower, they aren't that heavy, and helicopters are the normal way they are installed. Heavier towers are also installed with helicopters but typically sectioned in pieces.
And it is not going to happen fast enough that someone does not notice the AM station is offline
Very few people are going to assume some foul play and call up a station if some back country AM station goes offline outside of operating hours.
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When you start looking at the weight of one of these towers a helicopter seems unlikely. They are heaving enough that you need a big expensive hard to find helicopter and a pilot to fly it.
Looking at the weight it also appears that a scrapper would need to be very skilled and this would take some time to steal.
And it is not going to happen fast enough that someone does not notice the AM station is offline and goes to see what broken and finds the tower in the process of being stolen.
So this story smells funny.
Helicopter, yeah, you'd need a serious heavy lift chopper. A S-92 heavy lift chopper has an external load limit of 4.5t and you won't be flying that very high.
However a ground based cut and shut job isn't that difficult to imagine, especially if they did it over several days/nights.
Business owner gambles... loses. (Score:2)
Elmore said the station's property was not insured.
Play stupid games....
Note: That also means if the tower or any portion of it fell in bad weather, you know, like the tornados that are becoming more common in the South, the station wouldn't have any coverage for injuries/damage to others.
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There's a difference between property insurance and liability insurance, and you're not obligated to take property coverage to get liability coverage.
Why? (Score:3, Funny)
Clearly the thieves were planning to start their own conservative talk radio station, Cajun music station, or AM religious network.
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It's an attack on critical infrastructure. Maybe softening up before an invasion.
Or so the people who need to have AM radio in their cars would have us believe.
Can't have shit in Detroit. (Score:2)
Is anyone surprised? (Score:2)
If the punishment doesn't deter, thieves get more and more emboldened, to the point of selling a frickin' 200ft broadcast tower. Simple as that.
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I remember reading articles about thieves in Russia stealing entire bridges, so you have a point there...
Only in the USA (Score:3)
You'd never see a headline like this in Canada.
No, it would be "Thieves Steal 61m Tower from Quebec Radio Station"
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Alberta is the Canadian equivalent.
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Having lived in both, there's not much different but the langage.
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Ah, that is true. Albertabama is more and more the case with Dr. Steele in charge.
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You'd never see a headline like this in Canada.
No, it would be "Thieves Steal 61m Tower from Quebec Radio Station"
"A Royale' with cheese"
Several similar cases - for the copper (Score:2, Informative)
This may be the first theft of a full radio tower. Thieves have been known to target radio towers for their copper.
Last month, copper thieves toppled the tower of Payne Media Group country “K95.5” KITX in Hugo, OK, knocking the station off the air and causing nearly half a million dollars in damage.
Also in January, WAYN Rockingham, NC (900) was knocked off the air when copper wires were stolen and damage was done to the tower electronics.
In May 2023, Agape Communications’ adult standards K
Huh (Score:4, Funny)
Is there a fraternity house in the general vicinity?
Was it even noticed? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree this story is suspicious, but playing along for now.... ....what do they mean landscapers noticed it was missing?
Like no one called in and said 'hey, there's no AM broadcast'?
Sounds like a case of 'no one was even listening anyway'. Hopefully the thieves make better use of it!
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It sounds like everyone listens on FM, and they've been simulcasting on AM only out of obligation to their licensing agreement.
Re:Was it even noticed? (Score:5, Interesting)
"No one was even listening" would also have to include the DJ, the chief engineer, the owner, or whoever was the operator at the time.
I've worked at two radio stations in my life, and in both cases there was monitoring equipment that immediately generated an alarm if the transmitter went off the air. The chief engineer's job was to get the station back on the air ASAP when that happened. The FCC requires this. The privilege of operating a commercial radio station comes with the obligation to keep it on the air, per FCC regulations.
There's no way that a transmitter, tower, and antenna could have been stolen and carted away before the people who worked there noticed it, much less a landscaping crew. Suspicious, indeed.
Too complicated and expensive to be a scrap thief (Score:4, Funny)
It was an oldies station so I suspect it was a Heavy Metal thief.
Hinky, to say the least. (Score:2)
"Is that an AM tower in your pocket (Score:3, Funny)
...or are you just very glad to see me?"
Haha reported by a Landscaping Crew. (Score:2)
Even the transmitter monitoring equipment would be reporting an error, wouldn't it? Oh they also stole the transmitter; smells like an inside job.
It was a mission (Score:2)
Just someone given their GTA missions too much thought
Helicopter steals tower (Score:3)
Re:Always Helpful (Score:5, Insightful)
> The FCC also notified WJLX on Thursday morning that the station would have to go off the air because of the theft.
The feds stepping in to help at every opportunity.
It's not the FCC's job to assist radio stations with their equipment. Their job is to monitor the allocation of radio waves and ensure people are following the rules.
It sucks that Bubba and friends needed some cash and took the tower, but that is not in the realm of the FCC.
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It does seem strange though that they have a licensed transmitter but can't use it because their OTHER licensed transmitter is missing...
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No it's doesn't. It's a licencing requirement for public broadcast to reach the people you say you're going to reach. If one of your transmitters is offline for the foreseeable future you're operating outside your license to provide that public service. They'd need to re-license their station with the updated information.
This is different from private radio communications. If your own LMR station goes down then the FCC won't give a shit as you're only impacting yourself.
Re:Always Helpful (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, it still seems strange. Due to circumstances beyond theior control, the station CANNOT transmit on AM right now. They try to meet their public service as much as they possibly can with the other transmitter but the FCC says NOPE, ALL OR NOTHING! NOW!!!
It would make more sense to let them continue on FM while either providing a timeline to get back up on AM as well or beginning the re-licensing process.
Re:Always Helpful (Score:5, Informative)
Jamal and friends, get it right.
Nope, Bubba. They have the equipment to do this. Guaranteed.
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Yup. I took a look at the place on Google street view. The antenna was tucked in down a gravel road through the woods behind a chicken processing plant. Chain link fence all around the factory. Cinder block and steel buildings with dozens of long haul trucks parked in the lots. Has a guard house too, but nobody sitting in the booth. You just know that Bubba and his kin folk have all the equipment you'd need to take down that tower piece by piece. They probably just borrowed what they needed from the f
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Yup. I took a look at the place on Google street view. The antenna was tucked in down a gravel road through the woods behind a chicken processing plant. Chain link fence all around the factory. Cinder block and steel buildings with dozens of long haul trucks parked in the lots. Has a guard house too, but nobody sitting in the booth. You just know that Bubba and his kin folk have all the equipment you'd need to take down that tower piece by piece. They probably just borrowed what they needed from the factory. Likely did it in broad daylight and nobody paid any attention. Any noise from the equipment would have been drowned out by the factory.
My question is why? Did Bubba just get drunk and decide to steal it for shits and giggles or is Alabama so bad things get stolen for scrap metal? In just about every developed country a small chain link fence would be enough to deter thieves, a lot of developing nations I can think of as well.
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Re:Always Helpful (Score:5, Informative)
> The FCC also notified WJLX on Thursday morning that the station would have to go off the air because of the theft.
The feds stepping in to help at every opportunity.
The FM station, W268BM, is officially just a translator of the AM station, which means it rebroadcasts the AM feed on FM. It isn't legally licensed to operate as a standalone radio station. So as much as it sucks, the FCC is following the law here.
Apparently, this station also has a checkered history [wikipedia.org] including being sold repeatedly (recently), shutdowns because of inadequate maintenance on the AM tower, etc.
FM translators of AM stations get converted to standalone stations (with a corresponding shutdown of the original AM station) all the time, so I'm surprised the FCC didn't approve a conversion, but maybe there are good reasons for that (or maybe they filed the wrong paperwork).
Either way, this seems a little sus, but it is Alabama we're talking about, so... :-D
Re:Always Helpful (Score:5, Interesting)
The FM station, W268BM, is officially just a translator of the AM station,
No problem. How powerful does the AM station have to be? Just pick up a 50 Watt AM transmitter and go back on the air.
It's how the Jesus channels get "must carry" cable TV coverage. Minimum power transmitter and the cable companies have to carry them.
Re:Always Helpful (Score:5, Informative)
The strength of the AM transmitter would be within the license. They would have to output between X and Y watts of power, and report their coverage area on a regular basis. The transmitter itself is tied to a tower and would have the be at Z feet as well, making this an even harder "quick fix".
Transmitters take a long time to source. Probably a good half of the ones in service today are running on repaired or backup equipment.
Towers take a long time to permit and build. Months, if not years. And even then, it can take just as long to wait for the 1-2 qualified folks that do this thing to get to you.
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How powerful does the AM station have to be?
Depends on the license paperwork. That's usually the issue with the FCC. You need to do what you say you are going to do. You can't deviate from the license requirements. The license requirements typically give max and min output. They also give *height* of the transmitter. Their issue here isn't the AM transmitter (those things aren't that expensive), it's the tower.
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That would be one way of dealing with the AM problem, the poorly-maintained tower that may have required unaffordable repairs to get it back up to spec gets mysteriously stolen in broad daylight and then they petition the FCC for FM-only based on not being able to do AM any more.
Having said that, did the guards at the factory report hearing anyone say "y'all watch this!" shortly before the tower disappeared?
Re: Always Helpful (Score:2)
It would seem the station was only investing in and monitoring the FM signal. They should have noticed the loss of the AM signal long before landscaper did.
Back when I was in the biz you had to take regular readings on your strength to know you are still legal. If there is a logbook showing readings for the AM station when it was gone, the FCC might just get offended and shut you down for a while.
Re:Always Helpful (Score:5, Insightful)