Alabama station in disbelief after 200-foot radio tower stolen
Radio station WJLX can no longer broadcast its AM programming since the incident.
Many outlets' stock photos for their version of this story are of much, much heftier towers than what was actually stolen. CNN's story has what they attribute as a photo of the actual shack and the base of the tower. It's still a pretty amazing story, nonetheless.
on the one hand, i'm really amazed the thieves were able to bring it down without attracting much attention, and were able to complete their work in somewhat short order.
on the other hand, i wonder how remote that station was from civilization.
Yeah, I mean, 200 feet of anything just doesn't fit in the back of a pickup truck.
I can easily fit a few 61 meters yarns in my backpack
Either it is a construction with bolts you can remove to turn it into smaller segments, or you cut it into smaller pieces with an angle grinder.
From the photo it is clear that they weren't getting the mast there with a special transporter. that would be way to expensive.
I work for a local radio station that has a few remote transmitter sites. They widen the broadcast area or put out specific frequencies for that area. Annoyingly, this happens more often than you’d think.
Over the years we’ve had about a handful of transmitters stolen. We’ll get complaints about poor reception or a frequency being off air and we send a tech guy out. And sure enough, the transmitter’s completely gone.
Of course it’s all insured, but it tales a few days to get the new gear and install it. That costs us listenership and potential ad revenue.
Usually the thefts are done by people who run pirate radio stations. Because if you’re doing crimes already, one more doesn’t make a difference. They use the stolen transmitter to set up their own remote site so they don’t get caught. We’ve had gear recovered by the police when they discovered pirate station locations.
The transmitter, sure, I can see that, but a 200 foot tower?
We haven't had OUR towers stolen per se, but we have had people strip wires and lightning strike protection stuff from them when the scrap metal prices soared years ago. Most of our towers are close-ish to populated areas, so I doubt it's worth the risk to hang out for a few hours to dismantle one. I could see someone stealing one of it's remote enough and given enough time.
Where are pirate radio stations still a thing? And that cops deal with?
Here in the Netherlands, pirate radio is definitely still a thing. As long as radio has been around, people have tried to regulate it. And if something's regulated, people are bound to ignore and break those rules.
Our own local station actually has its roots in pirate radio. Back in 1994, a group of local pirates got together and formed a legit, licensed FM radio station. The reason being that those pirates got caught frequently. They figured going legit would be cheaper than constantly paying fines and having equipment seized.
Even in 2024, pirate radio still exists. In 2023, the police and Dutch telecoms agency caught 114 illegal stations. When someone finds an illegal transmitter, police get involved. In some cases, that's also due to safety issues. There have been cases where the pirates put the equipment in trees, surrounded by asbestos as a deterrent to dismantling it. That's actual, legitimate crime that endangers people. When caught, they can get fined up to 45.000 euros.
Now, you might be thinking: why even risk that? Why be a pirate when you can just set up a completely legal online station? Online radio gets you an even wider audience without all the risk. But to the pirates, that risk, the illegal nature, is part of what draws them to it. Most pirates aren't assholes, thankfully, and they frequently run nicer, more modern equipment than the stuff we use. As long as they keep off legit FM frequencies, we don't really have beef with them doing their thing.
How in God's name does a person simply steal a 65 m transmitter?? Do they not bolt that thing to the building or to the pavement?
With a big wrench
Cut the cables and the bolts will break.
At least y'all had the sense to be insured.
Even so, it's a pain in the ass involving police reports, there's a deductible, the equipment needs to be special order, etc. etc. Not to mention the week or two of complaints you get. But yeah, insurance is good to have when an FM transmitter can cost anywhere between 3000 and 16000 euros depending on wattage and features. The remote ones are at the cheap end of the scale, but you're still looking at about 4 grand when all other costs are factored in if you didn't have the insurance.
It's less of a difficulty than you think. I worked at a TV station and our old tower that was in a farmer's field was replaced by one in town and we all watched the tower get knocked down. Took about 2 minutes. Just cut the guide cables and it falls.
The part that took a while was figuring out what to cut in what order so that no one got hurt. But if you're just there to steal it, you're probably a lot less worried about that.
Guy wires, not guide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy-wire
They call them that because it's what guys use to erect their radio masts. /j
For anyone interested, I was wondering if there was other motivation than "just theft" or for pirate reuse.
The station's webpage and Facebook seem benign, they do feed national news on their site through ABC so the top 2 stories are how the lakes are too warm for ice and a police issue in NY, so they seem, unbiased? But not in a way that would get them targetted by unsavory individuals. No idea what on-air content looks like, but it just seems like people who like oldies and try to keep the community informed. Good on them.
A shame LoTT doesn't use a radio tower... Just sayin...
What is LoTT?
Lord of the Things? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Libs of TikTok
Honestly I'm not even mad, just impressed
Fun fact: 200-foot radio towers are free. You can take them home. I have 257 200-foot radio towers.
Can't have shit in Decatur!
I putting all my beans on meth futures.
That's so funny, I just put all my meth into bean futures. I'm going legit.
I call Rockapella to the stand.
But do you have- The warrant... the warrant...
You've got the crook!
And in the latest news from Steeplechase...
Somebody will get that reference.
One theory I saw online was that they had quietly turned off the AM transmitter to save money (AM transmitters use a lot of energy apparently) and therefore didn't see on their monitoring when it was stolen
