Alabama radio station's AM tower stolen!

[thewayne]

The station HAD a two-hundred foot tower! Had is the operative word as it has been stolen! And now the station is completely off the air. The station has an FM side, but apparently it is a repeat of the AM side and the FCC says it cannot broadcast if the AM side is down, so the station is completely off the air.

The tower itself dates back to the 1950s and is worth over $200,000. There's additional equipment installed on it in service of the broadcasting worth another $60,000. And these towers aren't exactly stocked and ready to be delivered. This seriously cripples the station, and if there's an area emergency like a tornado or wild fire, the people in its broadcast footprint won't be able to tune in for information!

And since they are licensed for broadcast by the Federal Communications Commission, interfering with their broadcast, perhaps by doing something like stealing their tower is a Federal crime and will earn you up to ten years in the Fed pen!

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/200-foot-am-radio-tower-disappears-halting-alabama-station-broadcast/

Comments

[conuly]

Okay, but can I say I'm a bit impressed that the thieves pulled this off?

[thewayne]

They either had a heck of a trailer handy or a crew with some great cut saws.  Yeah, it was a pretty amazing heist as that was a monster-big tower!

[acelightning73]

I assume the thieves are going to have it cut up and sell it for scrap. I have to believe that the station had insurance on the equipment. But how come nobody noticed? Messing with the tower would include disconnecting the feed from the transmitter. And in most radio stations the audio on the speakers in the studio area comes from an air monitor - a receiver tuned to the station's frequency. If there's no RF being transmitted, there'll be no sound on the studio speakers, or in the announcer's headphones.

I owned a pair of headphones with a built-in radio receiver, which I would use to make sure the signal was still going out. It was especially useful for doing a remote broadcast (from a used-car-lot grand opening to a live band at the bar that booked country bands). It was intended for people who wanted to listen to the radio (especially the folks who always had the ball game on while they were working on something around the house) while they were mowing the lawn or jogging.

[armiphlage]

It's a "full-service oldies music format" station, so most of the time it'd be lights-out operation. They might not even have a studio, only a computer queued up with a playlist of songs, ads, paid religious broadcasts, and station identification clips.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WJLX

[dewline]

We need to get back to locally-owned and operated radio stations, then...

[thewayne]

I found that page interesting, that it had been bought by a trust then when that trust dissolved it became owned by an individual.

[thewayne]

Very interesting.  And sad, sad that broadcast radio has so many stations like this since the likes of Clearwater et al have swept through the nation buying up stations.  Not that they were involved in this one.

[acelightning73]

I have worked with program automation, and I LOATHE it. It's more work taking care of the machinery that plays things at a specified time, than it would be to push a button at the right time.Programming those beasts is like trying to handle the schedules and routes of EVERY BUS LINE IN THE COUNTY, with only pencil and paper. I'm perfectly capable of flipping a switch and saying "WWWW, 590 AM, at the bottom of your radio dial! It's 7 PM. Now here's the Elmer Gantry Prayer Tower Hour..."

[bibliofile]

As a radio listener, I too loathe program automation (and the proliferation of said radio stations). I always assumed that it was preferred by MBA-type business execs who'd rather do away with human employees altogether: so messy, requiring individual attention, such as raises and benefits, etc. etc. Among other things [waves hands at all the issues brought on by the changes in the radio broadcast industry in, oh, the last X decades].

[acelightning73]

I started working in radio in the late 1960s. The old-timers hated automation, not only because it reduced the number of old-timers who were needed, but because it SOUNDS LIKE SHIT. Nowadays you can buy software to do your scheduling, logging, and monitoring the transmitter's behavior all automagically. I know how to do all those things by hand, because I learned them back in the dim mists of prehistory. The MBA types just want to keep their costs down and their profits up, and they don't want the union, and they don't want to have to hire extra people to handle various tasks, and they don't want to bother putting out any kind of quality products as long as the consumers continue to consume weak-flavored beer out of red plastic cups while they munch on fried pork rinds.

[disneydream06]

WOW... That is just bizarre.
How do you steal a two hundred foot tower? :o :o :o
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

The same way you eat an elephant, one bite at a time?  ROFL!  I don't know.  According to the Wikipedia page for the station that was posted as a reply, they've had a lot of outages due to deferred maintenance, I'm guessing it wasn't unusual for the station to go off the air.  If they had this history, I'm guessing the thieves just decided to make their own outages.  They had to have someone savvy about broadcast radio because the output of those transmitters can be lethal!

[disneydream06]

Inside job? :o :o :o

[bibliofile]

Or maybe someone got the idea from the guy who stole that statue of Jackie Robinson to sell for scrap? Though considering how he got caught while trying to melt it down, I'm interested to know how the thieves plan to disguise all the metal in a tower that huge.

[disneydream06]

Sad to say there are probably too many people that just don't care. :o

[thewayne]

That's just appalling.  I worked for a police department, and we had a metal theft unit.  It worked like the pawn shop detail: any transaction over $25 required a slip to be filled out and sent to the unit, which then checked against any thefts from utility yards, like manhole covers or spools of wire and such.  But to steal the statue of a legend for scrap?  That's just sad.  I really hope they catch these guys and throw the book at 'em.  I'm glad the original mold is still in good shape.

[thewayne]

Possibility, but I doubt it.  You never know.  It'll depend on them finding the remains of the antenna or some other link to the perpetrators.

[disneydream06]

If you hear, keep us posted. :)

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

... but you kinda have to admire someone who could steal a 200 foot tower.

Re: Yes ...

[thewayne]

It is a heck of a theft.

[silveradept]

That's certainly a very planned-out heist, but I still have to wonder why you would steal the entire broadcast tower, instead of some of the other components that would be easier to pawn or otherwise fence.

[thewayne]

The equipment mounted on the tower would not at all be easy to pawn or fence as they're very specialized for the broadcast industry.  Its main value is going to be the raw metal weight of the tower sold as scrap, guaranteed the metal scrap yards throughout the county are going to be looking for pieces resembling a broadcast tower.

[silveradept]

I wonder how much effort they'll have to put into things to make the scrap look like regular scrap and not broadcast tower scrap. And how far they might have to go to get it done.

[thewayne]

I don't know where scrap dealers, or pawn shop owners, for that matter, rate on the scrupulous scale.  I guess it depends on the individuals and stores.