‘What do you mean, the tower is gone?’: thieves steal 200ft structure from Alabama radio station | Alabama::Small radio station forced to go silent after ‘unbelievable’ theft of giant tower, which would cost over $100,000 to replace

    • @bassomitron
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      1311 months ago

      I was thinking Despicable Me level, but that’s probably because my kid is obsessed with that movie.

  • @[email protected]
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    3311 months ago

    For those wondering like me, that’s a bit over 60m in rest of the world units.

    That’s crazy.

    • @Serpent
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      110 months ago

      Just divide by three and you will be close enough to understand the scale.

  • @TheGrandNagus
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    2611 months ago

    I hate organised crime, but damn, part of me just finds this so impressive that I’m not even angry

    • circuscritic
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      11 months ago

      This was simply a meth heads, or junkies, with the right power tools, heavy equipment, and knowledge.

      They’ve either already sold it for scrap, have one of the biggest ever private HAM repeaters in their backyard, or possibly duct taped it to their now collapsed roof.

    • @[email protected]
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      110 months ago

      High voltage transmissions towers have parts stolen all the time. I have a vague memory of half a dozen being stolen from a desert in India and no one noticing for a year

  • @[email protected]
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    2211 months ago

    So the missing tower was discovered by a landscaping crew, did nobody trust listens to the radio notice?

    • @[email protected]
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      2311 months ago

      AM radio? Anyone who is listening to that probably doesn’t have a phone to call anyone about it, inside their Mad Max bunker.

      • @[email protected]
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        711 months ago

        Or they might not know what country code to use since some of that AM stuff gets broadcasted really far.

        • GreatAlbatross
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          11 months ago

          I remember doing international support as a youngling, and asking my co-worker what the calling code was for the US.
          “+1”
          ‘Haha, no, really, what is it?’
          Checks internet
          Makes the tea once everyone has finished laughing

      • @_wizard
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        211 months ago

        But my company absolutely has a dedicated target audience we boast about to potential advertisers.

    • @ripcord
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      1811 months ago

      Apparently this was their AM feed and most people listen to their FM feed. And they’d been doing maintenance lately where they’d be down for days at a time, so may not have seemed unusual.

      Plus they’re a really small station and their listener base skews old and people are kinda apathetic.

      The bigger problem I guess is that they themselves appear not to have been doing anything to monitor the signal as required by the FCC. But I really doubt they get audited much or ever.

    • @abhibeckert
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      11 months ago

      They have a 100+ mile range and often the same content will be broadcast on a different frequency by other towers. A lot of people would have just switched to the other frequency and moved on with their lives. You might have three frequencies to choose from for the same content.

  • Lad
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    1611 months ago

    How the fucking fuck do you pull off something like this?

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    1311 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Elmore said the theft was first discovered last week by a landscaping crew that regularly manages the area nearby the tower, WBRC reported.

    The radio tower was previously located in a wooded area, behind a local poultry plant.

    Elmore quickly reported the theft, but said that local police were equally surprised at the brazen robbery.

    About six months ago, a nearby radio station had their air conditioning unit, copper pipes and other materials stolen.

    Elmore isn’t sure if the robberies are connected, but believes thieves may have targeted WJLX’s tower and transmitter to make a quick buck from selling the metal.

    Elmore added that the station is working to get the AM tower up to get back on the air, but will resume their broadcasts online in the meantime.


    The original article contains 553 words, the summary contains 129 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • @Librenautik
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    1110 months ago

    For me it smells shady business.

    There is no way to remove the tower without leaving trace. I would

  • @teamevil
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    1111 months ago

    Lucky they didn’t kill themselves. AM works by sending a FUCKton of RF energy into the tower structure. If you’re touching the tower and ground you’re going to conduct it instead and poof.

    • circuscritic
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      1811 months ago

      Typically towers are simple structures to elevate the actual antennas high up in the air. The towers aren’t live wires, they’re ladders with rungs for mounting.

      • @deranger
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        11 months ago

        Not AM. They’ve got an insulator at the base, the entire tower is live. There’s so much energy being transmitted you can get sparks off the fence surrounding the tower.

        https://youtu.be/Aax-ehkRTnQ

        • @[email protected]
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          511 months ago

          There was another video where a guy clamped a wrench to ground with a jumper cable and held it (wearing insulated gloves) within arcing distance of the tower. The power transfer of the arc was enough that you could audibly hear one of the transmission frequencies just in the arc along. Those AM towers are no joke.

        • @abhibeckert
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          11 months ago

          Surely there’s an easy to find switch to cut power and make it safe.

  • @KrapKake
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    910 months ago

    “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.”

    But why?

    • @[email protected]
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      510 months ago

      they have a deal with authorities only to re-transmit their AM broadcast. No AM, no FM. Prevents demise of AM broadcasts.

    • @[email protected]
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      410 months ago

      Yeah they really needed to do a follow up question on that one didn’t they?

      Can only really speculate here… maybe something to do with the Emergency Alert System? But I dunno. Could just be FCC bureaucracy reasons.

      • @Kiernian
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        310 months ago

        It would set a horrible precedent.

        I don’t know the exact frequency specifics, but I know the FCC is super particular about any broadcast over a certain power on most wavelengths.

        I imagine this is yet another instance where “mostly works” is in fact somewhat problematic in one way or another.

  • @[email protected]
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    711 months ago

    It can’t be a tower like one in the picture right? There’s no way you’re stealing one like that without anyone noticing

    • @[email protected]
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      711 months ago

      Some of these installations are quite rural.

      I bet with a big box truck, some meth heads with a few angle grinders, you could get one of these down and gone in a few hours.

  • @abhibeckert
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    11 months ago

    This reminds me of the time someone stole a mango in Australia… obviously, being Australia, the mango was very big.

    It was just a marketing stunt and it backfired — police weren’t too happy about wasting their time investigating a fake crime. Even after they were told what happened, they still had phones ringing off the hook with people calling in evidence, wasting government resources.

  • @[email protected]
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    511 months ago

    I do love that US radio stations actually look like they did in the cartoons, with a massive tower with red blinking lights next to the building.

  • Jojo
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    411 months ago

    Wow I’m glad they had that little addendum after the headline telling me this happened in Alabama, I was worried that it might be my local Alabama radio station.