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

[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.