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It is hard to imagine the FCC wouldn’t notice that there was no signal on that AM station for that amount of time, or the owner, or the power company. Everythi

It is hard to imagine the FCC wouldn’t notice that there was no signal on that AM station for that amount of time, or the owner, or the power company. Everything about the story is weird.

lutoma 3y ago
The owner probably noticed but didn't care. Presumably the only reason they still had it was because they were legally required to so they could keep operating on FM. And I doubt the FCC is constantly monitoring any random AM station if nobody complains.
- sitkack 3y ago
  They definitely spot signals that shoudn't be there, even AM radio stations. I think no one at the FCC cared, the broadcaster knew the tower was gone and also didn't care since their main concern was apparently running the FM station. > Elmore explained that they were alerted to the theft on Friday when a bush hog crew arrived at the WJLX tower site in Jasper to clean up the property, only to find it completely cleared out by the thieves. You don't get alerted that the tower and the transmitter are gone by bush crew. You get alerted by the signal being gone. He should have been paged 2 seconds after the signal stopped. I still don't buy it.
  - quesera 3y ago
    The FCC does not monitor broadcasts for presence or content. They do respond to complaints (typically interference), but a missing signal creates no interference. If someone else wanted that AM allocation, they would have filed a complaint that the licensee was not operating, and the license would be cancelled. It's also not typical to monitor your own signal directly. You have telemetry coming back from the transmitter site. This includes antenna VSWR which would spike if the antenna disappeared. Or no telemetry at all, if the transmitter building lost power or was raided etc. There is zero possibility that a compliant licensee would not be aware of an antenna loss within seconds of it happening. So the question becomes what level of noncompliance this licensee was operating under. Sounds to me like they were cheating because AM transmissions are low ROI.
    - sandworm101 3y ago
      A tiny operation like this? I doubt they had anything close to telemetry. Rather, they probably had a tech who visited the site ever couple months. Nothing in the shack/tower would have required daily maintenance. Their only realtime "telemetry" might have been when the power bill for the site was lower than normal.
      - quesera 3y ago
        Fair points, but: Telemetry is cheap in the scheme of broadcast expenses. If the station is operating on a shoestring budget, you have at least one human who cares that the revenue-generating operations (broadcast signal) are happening. Similarly that person would notice the change in power expenses. Even in the lowest-tech, least-compliant of stations, someone would notice an antenna and/or tower loss within a day. This reads like a case of severe neglect, almost certainly intentional, and possibly fraudulent.
        mynameisvlad 3y ago
        This charitable explanation hinges on the assumption that they want to run an AM station. Given that their license is for a FM rebrodcaster, it seems like the FM business is the one they care about more, and the AM signal was just being used as a means to an end.
        quesera 3y ago
        You're right. They clearly did not want to run the AM station, and it was likely a negative ROI operation. My assertion though, is that there's no chance that they were unaware that the AM station was down. The only path to plausible deniability requires extreme non-compliance, which risks fines and could even threaten their ability to hold other licenses / operate other stations. So they're in trouble either way, but this story of surprise is absolute crap.
        scarby2 3y ago
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    > He should have been paged 2 seconds after the signal stopped. I think you're greatly overestimating the technical sophistication of this operation. I'm not saying they didn't notice sooner, but I doubt they had this sort of modern monitoring system set up. It seems like the sort of operation that has been coasting on minimal money/effort for many years.
    - quesera 3y ago
      It is not legal to operate a remote transmitter site without full telemetry coming back to a human (studio) operator, or (more recently) an automated system which will alert a chief engineer, which is a required designee of all licensees. The question remains: in what ways were they operating noncompliantly? However there's almost zero possibility that they were unaware of their antenna loss until the brush crew showed up. Unless the theft happened overnight (some AM stations shut down at night). Even if nothing else clued them in, a transmitter without an antenna will basically shut down, and the electric bill will go to near zero.
      - lupusreal 3y ago
        According to Wikipedia, the station has changed hands a few times in recent years because the owners kept going bankrupt, and furthermore the station has gone off the air numerous times before due to deferred maintenance. So noncompliance seems like a very safe bet! In light of that, it's possible they had no functional telemetry or nobody was paying attention to it, and therefore, it's plausible they really didn't notice when the antenna went missing. But if I were the feds, I would be investigating the possibility that the operators themselves sold the antenna for scrap...
        quesera 3y ago
        > I would be investigating the possibility that the operators themselves sold the antenna for scrap... This might sound far-fetched to many, but it's a real thing. Galvanized steel has a decent scrap value. Taking down a tower is not a trivial project, but it happens. I was responsible for a 800-ft tower in a past life, and a pager, a 4x4 truck, and a gun were considered required equipment. I opted for the first two, but wasn't prepared to commit to the responsibilities of the third. The most common theft scenario was an equipment smash-and-grab. But tower thefts were not unheard of.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    In some markets, they are still operating off of NTSC tape formats and equipment. They have a device to upres the content to HD right before going to the transmitter. All because they are in such a small market, and there's not enough money to justify buying HD equipment. Everyone seems to think that TV stations are all on the same level of the flagships for each network. Some of them still are less than what you'd see in the movie UHF.
  - michaelt 3y ago
    > I still don't buy it. Agreed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqIysr3o_vY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqIysr3o_vY is a video of some people exploring the site. The guy ropes and fallen fences are overgrown, the electricity meter has clearly been missing for months at the very least. There's no evidence like crushed plants indicating the tower having fallen any time recently. The station's FM license was part of an FCC scheme to improve the economics of struggling AM stations, and because the aim was to strengthen AM not replace it, the license requires them to continue broadcasting on AM. My guess is they've been broadcasting in violation of that license for years, someone called them on it, and they had to concoct this "stolen tower" story to cover that up.
    - Fatnino 3y ago
      A major problem with this "helpful" FCC scheme is that FM sounds way way better than AM. So, if anything, simulcasting drives listeners off the AM side and into the much better quality FM side.
    - shagie 3y ago
      https://nypost.com/2024/02/11/news/alabama-radio-station-wjlx-booted-from-air-after-200ft-tower-vanished/ https://nypost.com/2024/02/11/news/alabama-radio-station-wjl... > The Jasper, Alabama, station was ordered off air by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as authorities continue to investigate how and why the heavy steel structure suddenly disappeared. > “In all my years of being in the business, around the business, everything like that, I have never seen anything like this,” Elmore told The Post. > “You don’t hear of a 200-foot tower being stolen,” he added.” > While the self-proclaimed “Sound of Walker County,” still has its FM transmitter and tower, it is not allowed to operate while the AM station is off the air, according to FCC.
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    A lot of this monitoring comes from dissatisfied listeners and amateur radio operators. It's not really the FCC. After they get a report, they have direction-finding equipment that they are very good at using, though.
- wtracy 3y ago
  Anyone care to summarize why it's more profitable to operate on FM, and why the FCC cares about incentivizing them to operate on AM?
  - quesera 3y ago
    FM has more bandwidth per channel, so better sound. And stereo. Doesn't matter much for talk radio, but it sounds like this station was mixed music/talk? Some modern listeners don't even know what AM stations are. AM has better propagation (lower frequency), but inherently more noise (amplitude modulated).
sandworm101 3y ago
The FCC is big, but no. They dont have surveillance vans scouting the country to confirm thag every radio station is actually transmitting. Im sure they might have reacted had someone told them of this apparant scam, but who is going to notice the absence of a small AM station these days?
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  Sounds like the type of thing that would be great for civilian volunteers to do. Amateur radio licensees already do a good job of self monitoring their bands. Maybe offer them some kind of recognition if they monitor a commercial station not living up to its license requirements. Probably could automate the whole thing with a Raspberry Pi and an SDR.
  - myself248 3y ago
    You could automate the whole thing with zero additional hardware, just occasionally polling the existing kiwisdr network. You could also trilaterate the physical source of each frequency using TDoA, since all Kiwi samples are time-tagged with the integrated also-software-defined GPS receiver. Generate alerts if a licensed-stationary source appears to move, etc..? Track high-power CB abusers? The sky's the limit, just someone has to care, and be good with software, and both of those things have to overlap in the same person.
diggan 3y ago
> It is hard to imagine the FCC wouldn’t notice that there was no signal on that AM station for that amount of time, or the owner, or the power company. Maybe the typical approach of having flaky monitoring and after enough time, you simply chalk it up to "well, seems the monitoring is offline again, but no one is complaining so probably the thing still works"? Alternatively, the owner did notice it was missing, but reporting it as missing would also mean they have to shut down FM service, so they left it until someone complained/noticed.
- eastbound 3y ago
  > so probably the thing still works"? I’m sure radio operators know this one weird trick to confirm that theory: Turn on your AM car radio.
  - jacurtis 3y ago
    You're confusing two different parties involved in the monitoring here: the FCC and the station owner. The station owner likely knew within a few hours to a few days that the tower went offline. At the very least the power bill would have been very low or non-existent that month which would make it pretty obvious. And to your point they could tune their FM radio to their station frequency and see if it works. The FCC is a federal organization. I doubt they have an office in Jasper Alabama. So the FCC monitoring is the one in question here. Because as soon as the FCC notices the AM station is down, then the FM translation (which is what the station was really marketed around and gaining its viewership from) is shut down. Which means the station owner is out of a job. The FCC's monitoring is probably not realtime and I could see someone at the FCC getting an alert that this AM station in Jasper Alabama is down and they do think to themselves the monitoring is bad or flaky and don't immediately panic. The FCC isn't going to be able to just tune their radio to the AM station to check since they aren't in range of the station.
bombcar 3y ago
FCC just cares that the paperwork is filed and nobody complains. Just because you have a license doesn't mean you have to use it. > The radio station had an FCC license that required they operate an AM transmitter. Now that the FCC has found out that they are not broadcasting on AM, the station is not allowed to continue on FM. This (from the other thread) seems to be the pertinent part.
- b112 3y ago
  Your first two sentences are contradicted by the quote and your followup. Ues the FCC cares and yes they must use it, when using the FM teansmitter. The FCC most certainly should be monitoring these compliance requirements. I suspect someone at the FCC noticed they weren't transmitting, asked, then the owner claimed the just found out.. someone stole the tower!
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    It seems the AM station was missing for at least a year, so evidently the FCC wasn't paying very close attention. They probably didn't notice/care until somebody else brought it to their attention.
    - bandyaboot 3y ago
      I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the situation was something along the lines of: they were having financial difficulties and decided they could get away with not broadcasting on AM…sold the tower and equipment for scrap. Eventually someone notices and notifies the FCC. FCC contacts the operator and eventually they send out a bush hog crew to make the “discovery”.
      - quesera 3y ago
        This is the most plausible explanation I can imagine.
        3y ago
chefandy 3y ago
The photos only seem to show that there wasn't a 'standing' tower there. Maybe it fell and not enough people listened to notice the drastically degraded signal, and the owners just didn't care? I don't really get the regulatory aspect, but they're seemingly only operating this AM station as some sort of stipulation for their FM license? If that's true, why do people care? Why does the FCC care?
- Larrikin 3y ago
  If it's a requirement why don't you care that they are running a scam?
  - chefandy 3y ago
    Surely if it's a rule there's a reason behind it, no? I imagine I'd care about avoiding whatever negative impact the rule was mitigating. But when rules become an end rather than a means to an end, there's no clearer separation between what's legal and what's ethical. Just rules are necessary for an organized society, but rules aren't automatically just merely because they exist.
  - mrmanner 3y ago
    One thing I still haven’t understood after reading far too much about this strange story, is why the requirement is there. Like, why can’t they just apply for a regular FM license on the frequency they already use?
    - vel0city 3y ago
      They went with the license they did because it's cheaper. They can't just get a regular license at that frequency quickly because, according to the FCC: > THE FCC IS NOT ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR NEW FM COMMERCIAL BROADCAST STATIONS AT THE PRESENT TIME. Even if they were, your application just puts the allocation up for the next auction. I don't think the FCC has held an auction in a long time. https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/how-to-apply#FM https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/how-to-apply#FM

It is hard to imagine the FCC wouldn’t notice that there was no signal on that AM station for that amount of time, or the owner, or the power company. Everything about the story is weird.

lutoma 3y ago

The owner probably noticed but didn't care. Presumably the only reason they still had it was because they were legally required to so they could keep operating on FM. And I doubt the FCC is constantly monitoring any random AM station if nobody complains.

sitkack 3y ago
They definitely spot signals that shoudn't be there, even AM radio stations. I think no one at the FCC cared, the broadcaster knew the tower was gone and also didn't care since their main concern was apparently running the FM station. > Elmore explained that they were alerted to the theft on Friday when a bush hog crew arrived at the WJLX tower site in Jasper to clean up the property, only to find it completely cleared out by the thieves. You don't get alerted that the tower and the transmitter are gone by bush crew. You get alerted by the signal being gone. He should have been paged 2 seconds after the signal stopped. I still don't buy it.
- quesera 3y ago
  The FCC does not monitor broadcasts for presence or content. They do respond to complaints (typically interference), but a missing signal creates no interference. If someone else wanted that AM allocation, they would have filed a complaint that the licensee was not operating, and the license would be cancelled. It's also not typical to monitor your own signal directly. You have telemetry coming back from the transmitter site. This includes antenna VSWR which would spike if the antenna disappeared. Or no telemetry at all, if the transmitter building lost power or was raided etc. There is zero possibility that a compliant licensee would not be aware of an antenna loss within seconds of it happening. So the question becomes what level of noncompliance this licensee was operating under. Sounds to me like they were cheating because AM transmissions are low ROI.
  - sandworm101 3y ago
    A tiny operation like this? I doubt they had anything close to telemetry. Rather, they probably had a tech who visited the site ever couple months. Nothing in the shack/tower would have required daily maintenance. Their only realtime "telemetry" might have been when the power bill for the site was lower than normal.
    - quesera 3y ago
      Fair points, but: Telemetry is cheap in the scheme of broadcast expenses. If the station is operating on a shoestring budget, you have at least one human who cares that the revenue-generating operations (broadcast signal) are happening. Similarly that person would notice the change in power expenses. Even in the lowest-tech, least-compliant of stations, someone would notice an antenna and/or tower loss within a day. This reads like a case of severe neglect, almost certainly intentional, and possibly fraudulent.
      - mynameisvlad 3y ago
        This charitable explanation hinges on the assumption that they want to run an AM station. Given that their license is for a FM rebrodcaster, it seems like the FM business is the one they care about more, and the AM signal was just being used as a means to an end.
        quesera 3y ago
        You're right. They clearly did not want to run the AM station, and it was likely a negative ROI operation. My assertion though, is that there's no chance that they were unaware that the AM station was down. The only path to plausible deniability requires extreme non-compliance, which risks fines and could even threaten their ability to hold other licenses / operate other stations. So they're in trouble either way, but this story of surprise is absolute crap.
        scarby2 3y ago
- lupusreal 3y ago
  > He should have been paged 2 seconds after the signal stopped. I think you're greatly overestimating the technical sophistication of this operation. I'm not saying they didn't notice sooner, but I doubt they had this sort of modern monitoring system set up. It seems like the sort of operation that has been coasting on minimal money/effort for many years.
  - quesera 3y ago
    It is not legal to operate a remote transmitter site without full telemetry coming back to a human (studio) operator, or (more recently) an automated system which will alert a chief engineer, which is a required designee of all licensees. The question remains: in what ways were they operating noncompliantly? However there's almost zero possibility that they were unaware of their antenna loss until the brush crew showed up. Unless the theft happened overnight (some AM stations shut down at night). Even if nothing else clued them in, a transmitter without an antenna will basically shut down, and the electric bill will go to near zero.
    - lupusreal 3y ago
      According to Wikipedia, the station has changed hands a few times in recent years because the owners kept going bankrupt, and furthermore the station has gone off the air numerous times before due to deferred maintenance. So noncompliance seems like a very safe bet! In light of that, it's possible they had no functional telemetry or nobody was paying attention to it, and therefore, it's plausible they really didn't notice when the antenna went missing. But if I were the feds, I would be investigating the possibility that the operators themselves sold the antenna for scrap...
      - quesera 3y ago
        > I would be investigating the possibility that the operators themselves sold the antenna for scrap... This might sound far-fetched to many, but it's a real thing. Galvanized steel has a decent scrap value. Taking down a tower is not a trivial project, but it happens. I was responsible for a 800-ft tower in a past life, and a pager, a 4x4 truck, and a gun were considered required equipment. I opted for the first two, but wasn't prepared to commit to the responsibilities of the third. The most common theft scenario was an equipment smash-and-grab. But tower thefts were not unheard of.
- dylan604 3y ago
  In some markets, they are still operating off of NTSC tape formats and equipment. They have a device to upres the content to HD right before going to the transmitter. All because they are in such a small market, and there's not enough money to justify buying HD equipment. Everyone seems to think that TV stations are all on the same level of the flagships for each network. Some of them still are less than what you'd see in the movie UHF.
- michaelt 3y ago
  > I still don't buy it. Agreed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqIysr3o_vY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqIysr3o_vY is a video of some people exploring the site. The guy ropes and fallen fences are overgrown, the electricity meter has clearly been missing for months at the very least. There's no evidence like crushed plants indicating the tower having fallen any time recently. The station's FM license was part of an FCC scheme to improve the economics of struggling AM stations, and because the aim was to strengthen AM not replace it, the license requires them to continue broadcasting on AM. My guess is they've been broadcasting in violation of that license for years, someone called them on it, and they had to concoct this "stolen tower" story to cover that up.
  - Fatnino 3y ago
    A major problem with this "helpful" FCC scheme is that FM sounds way way better than AM. So, if anything, simulcasting drives listeners off the AM side and into the much better quality FM side.
  - shagie 3y ago
    https://nypost.com/2024/02/11/news/alabama-radio-station-wjlx-booted-from-air-after-200ft-tower-vanished/ https://nypost.com/2024/02/11/news/alabama-radio-station-wjl... > The Jasper, Alabama, station was ordered off air by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as authorities continue to investigate how and why the heavy steel structure suddenly disappeared. > “In all my years of being in the business, around the business, everything like that, I have never seen anything like this,” Elmore told The Post. > “You don’t hear of a 200-foot tower being stolen,” he added.” > While the self-proclaimed “Sound of Walker County,” still has its FM transmitter and tower, it is not allowed to operate while the AM station is off the air, according to FCC.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  A lot of this monitoring comes from dissatisfied listeners and amateur radio operators. It's not really the FCC. After they get a report, they have direction-finding equipment that they are very good at using, though.
wtracy 3y ago
Anyone care to summarize why it's more profitable to operate on FM, and why the FCC cares about incentivizing them to operate on AM?
- quesera 3y ago
  FM has more bandwidth per channel, so better sound. And stereo. Doesn't matter much for talk radio, but it sounds like this station was mixed music/talk? Some modern listeners don't even know what AM stations are. AM has better propagation (lower frequency), but inherently more noise (amplitude modulated).

sandworm101 3y ago

The FCC is big, but no. They dont have surveillance vans scouting the country to confirm thag every radio station is actually transmitting. Im sure they might have reacted had someone told them of this apparant scam, but who is going to notice the absence of a small AM station these days?

Mountain_Skies 3y ago
Sounds like the type of thing that would be great for civilian volunteers to do. Amateur radio licensees already do a good job of self monitoring their bands. Maybe offer them some kind of recognition if they monitor a commercial station not living up to its license requirements. Probably could automate the whole thing with a Raspberry Pi and an SDR.
- myself248 3y ago
  You could automate the whole thing with zero additional hardware, just occasionally polling the existing kiwisdr network. You could also trilaterate the physical source of each frequency using TDoA, since all Kiwi samples are time-tagged with the integrated also-software-defined GPS receiver. Generate alerts if a licensed-stationary source appears to move, etc..? Track high-power CB abusers? The sky's the limit, just someone has to care, and be good with software, and both of those things have to overlap in the same person.

diggan 3y ago

> It is hard to imagine the FCC wouldn’t notice that there was no signal on that AM station for that amount of time, or the owner, or the power company. Maybe the typical approach of having flaky monitoring and after enough time, you simply chalk it up to "well, seems the monitoring is offline again, but no one is complaining so probably the thing still works"? Alternatively, the owner did notice it was missing, but reporting it as missing would also mean they have to shut down FM service, so they left it until someone complained/noticed.

eastbound 3y ago
> so probably the thing still works"? I’m sure radio operators know this one weird trick to confirm that theory: Turn on your AM car radio.
- jacurtis 3y ago
  You're confusing two different parties involved in the monitoring here: the FCC and the station owner. The station owner likely knew within a few hours to a few days that the tower went offline. At the very least the power bill would have been very low or non-existent that month which would make it pretty obvious. And to your point they could tune their FM radio to their station frequency and see if it works. The FCC is a federal organization. I doubt they have an office in Jasper Alabama. So the FCC monitoring is the one in question here. Because as soon as the FCC notices the AM station is down, then the FM translation (which is what the station was really marketed around and gaining its viewership from) is shut down. Which means the station owner is out of a job. The FCC's monitoring is probably not realtime and I could see someone at the FCC getting an alert that this AM station in Jasper Alabama is down and they do think to themselves the monitoring is bad or flaky and don't immediately panic. The FCC isn't going to be able to just tune their radio to the AM station to check since they aren't in range of the station.

bombcar 3y ago

FCC just cares that the paperwork is filed and nobody complains. Just because you have a license doesn't mean you have to use it. > The radio station had an FCC license that required they operate an AM transmitter. Now that the FCC has found out that they are not broadcasting on AM, the station is not allowed to continue on FM. This (from the other thread) seems to be the pertinent part.

b112 3y ago
Your first two sentences are contradicted by the quote and your followup. Ues the FCC cares and yes they must use it, when using the FM teansmitter. The FCC most certainly should be monitoring these compliance requirements. I suspect someone at the FCC noticed they weren't transmitting, asked, then the owner claimed the just found out.. someone stole the tower!
- lupusreal 3y ago
  It seems the AM station was missing for at least a year, so evidently the FCC wasn't paying very close attention. They probably didn't notice/care until somebody else brought it to their attention.
  - bandyaboot 3y ago
    I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the situation was something along the lines of: they were having financial difficulties and decided they could get away with not broadcasting on AM…sold the tower and equipment for scrap. Eventually someone notices and notifies the FCC. FCC contacts the operator and eventually they send out a bush hog crew to make the “discovery”.
    - quesera 3y ago
      This is the most plausible explanation I can imagine.
      - 3y ago

chefandy 3y ago

The photos only seem to show that there wasn't a 'standing' tower there. Maybe it fell and not enough people listened to notice the drastically degraded signal, and the owners just didn't care? I don't really get the regulatory aspect, but they're seemingly only operating this AM station as some sort of stipulation for their FM license? If that's true, why do people care? Why does the FCC care?

Larrikin 3y ago
If it's a requirement why don't you care that they are running a scam?
- chefandy 3y ago
  Surely if it's a rule there's a reason behind it, no? I imagine I'd care about avoiding whatever negative impact the rule was mitigating. But when rules become an end rather than a means to an end, there's no clearer separation between what's legal and what's ethical. Just rules are necessary for an organized society, but rules aren't automatically just merely because they exist.
- mrmanner 3y ago
  One thing I still haven’t understood after reading far too much about this strange story, is why the requirement is there. Like, why can’t they just apply for a regular FM license on the frequency they already use?
  - vel0city 3y ago
    They went with the license they did because it's cheaper. They can't just get a regular license at that frequency quickly because, according to the FCC: > THE FCC IS NOT ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR NEW FM COMMERCIAL BROADCAST STATIONS AT THE PRESENT TIME. Even if they were, your application just puts the allocation up for the next auction. I don't think the FCC has held an auction in a long time. https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/how-to-apply#FM https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/how-to-apply#FM