They stole the WHOLE TOWER?!

*Update* (Feb 14): YouTuber @WilliamCollier visited the tower site on Monday and documented the tower base, fence, building... and details like a missing power meter. Lots of evidence points to a tower site that's been unused for a long time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqIysr3o_vY (warning: language) Before you consider donating to the station's GoFundMe, I would recommend waiting to hear the full story. There's more to this story than a tower being suddenly stolen (which is definitely not what happened here), forcing a small community FM station off the airwaves.

Decades ago, I was a DJ on an FM station. The transmitter shut down during my shift. Our station engineer was calling me within 5 minutes. I don't understand how the lawn mowers were the first to discover this.

In unrelated news, a nearby Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane helicopter was reportedly upsetting the chickens at the poultry farm...

The fact that the tower was taken, along with everything in the building, tells me either it was an epic scrap haul, or someone knew what it was, and it's heading somewhere else to be used by someone else.

Saw another report today, William Colliers channel. The reporter visited the site of the tower. It has been gone for years by the look of the place. The guy wires are on the ground and grown over with years of weeds. The building that housed the broadcasting equipment is a rotting mess. The owner owes money to just about everybody he does business with. It was not stolen.

if a 200 foot tower would magically appear in my backyard I wouldn't complain

I have a 5kw transmitting tube on the shelf in my den. Anybody who tries to steal it is gonna have to get past my cat.

I'm from Jasper and have some friends-of-friends in local entertainment, and let's just say the broadcasting scene around here has never been... normal. The saga of Terry Keith Hammond is really something to behold, and largely a matter of public record. There are FCC memorandums about his denied request for licensure that are amusing to read. Took the local authorities on a wild goose chase a few years ago and served a while in the local jail for theft, during which he received an extended sentence after hatching an honest-to-god terror plot. And that's all just one guy. Jasper's not a fun place to live, but I do get the exhilarating experience of hearing about local happenings from non-local news sources on a pretty regular basis, so it's got that going for it.

The AM equivalent to an insurance fire lol

This whole thing smells fishy beyond a simple theft

The elites don’t want you to know this but the towers at the station are free. You can take them home. I have 458 towers.

The station is so popular, nobody knew it was gone and radio station wasn't on the air until landscapers went out. LMAO

Sounds like an inside job right here lol

An interesting thing is if you use google street view from the interstate, a bit west of where the interstate crosses the railroad tracks, and look north towards the tower, the past street views you can see two towers, this one and it's neighbor to the North. June 2022 is the last date they both show, March 2023 and January 2024 you only see one tower.

It appears that the owners "stole" their own stuff in order to have a reason to launch a fundraising campaign.

I used to work in radio part time. It was a requirement to call the tower daily and get a status report of its condition for the FCC log. Everything from the tower lights to operation temperature was relayed back from the transmitter when you called it.

They mentioned "without a trace" but if you read the message @1:28 you can see that the bush hog crew reported that "wires are scattered everywhere". Not sure if they were talking about loose small wire or the larger guide wires?

Having worked around this industry early in my career, there is just no way it disappeared without a trace. This is hugely suspicious, and the push to keep that FM translator on the air, coupled with several reports I have seen about the a.m. transmitter regularly not operating, don’t help my suspicion index. This has become an international story very quickly, so you know people have got to be on that site right now and I can’t wait to see some pictures.

I've been waiting for you guys to cover this since I hear the story on the news. If ever there was a story for Geerling Engineer, this is it. I hope you both do drive down there this weekend and investigate what traces actually exist of the theft.

As a radio station they need to be able to broadcast EAS test alerts weekly, so they have to have some way to know the test is going out, yet this sounds like they didn't know that either if they didn't know the tower was gone. They could end up with some heft fines in addition to the costs of replacing the tower and transmitter.