“He said there’s wires all over the ground and the tower is gone.”
Tower Heist
Staff at a radio station in Jasper, Alabama were stunned after finding that the station’s 200-foot AM radio tower mysteriously went missing.
As a result, NBC reports, the station hasn’t been able to broadcast since.
When a landscaping crew showed up at the site last week for some spring cleaning, they discovered absolute mayhem and called station general manager Brett Elmore right away.
“What do you mean the tower is gone?” Elmore recalled saying in an NBC interview. “Are you sure you’re in the right place? I actually used more colorful words than that.”
“He said there’s wires all over the ground and the tower is gone,” he added.
Pirate Radio
Thieves didn’t just dismantle and drive off with the massive tower. They also ransacked a nearby building, picking it clean of all equipment including a transmitter.
To stay on the air, the station was hoping to appeal to the Federal Communications Commission to use FM radio until its AM tower is back up. Unfortunately, the regulator “denied our request to stay on air on the FM side, so actually, we’re about to go power down the transmitter,” Elmore told the NBC.
Worse yet, according to Elmore, 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,” he added.
Broadcast Burglary
We still have no idea of who could’ve stolen a 200-foot radio tower, let alone why. Elmore told The Guardian that thieves had also hit a nearby radio station six months ago, robbing it of its air conditioning unit, as well as copper pipes and other materials, but it’s unclear if the two heists are connected.
“This is a huge loss,” Elmore told the newspaper. “People have reached out and asked how they can help, but I don’t know how you can help unless you have a 200ft tower and an AM transmitter.”
More on radio signals: Chinese Spacecraft Emitting Strong Signal Over North America
Share This Article