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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

by 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
        I'm not familiar with the rules here but is not caring a complaint route to a defense? It can be in many other fields. I.e. purposefully don't have any monitoring, purposefully don't go to the site often etc. then only respond of someone tells you there's a problem. I've dealt with a few contracts in the past that have stipulated that we must respond within xx hours of becoming aware of an issue, if I didn't want to run the service it would be in my interests to do everything in my power not to avoid becoming aware of any issues.
  - LgWoodenBadger 3y ago
    What do you mean they don’t monitor for silence? https://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2022/07/articles/fcc-cracking-down-on-long-periods-of-station-silence-short-term-renewals-for-radio-stations-silent-more-than-25-of-license-term/ https://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2022/07/articles/fcc-cracki...
    - akira2501 3y ago
      You should read the linked decisions in the article. The FCC learned about the dead air because the stations themselves filed Special Temporary Authority paperwork with the FCC specifying that the station carrier was not active during that time. So, it was not active monitoring, but passive paperwork review, triggered by the license application itself, that caused the ruling. The FCC does not actively monitor stations in any way.
    - quesera 3y ago
      That article does not talk about the FCC monitoring ordinary licensees for "silence" (which I assume means off-air i.e. transmitter turned off, and not dead-air i.e. broadcast of silent audio). (Dead air is actually a bigger sin than off-air. Off-air happens. Dead air should almost never happen.) The article talks about monitoring stations who have a history of poor usage of their license. And it's not clear that "monitor" here would mean any active steps, vs just requiring the usual mandatory reporting of unscheduled, unpermitted, extended off-air events. But the FCC does not routinely monitor for dead air or any other violations. They do respond to complaints of all kinds. In competitive markets, licensees monitor each other.
- 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).

by lutoma 3y ago

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
        I'm not familiar with the rules here but is not caring a complaint route to a defense? It can be in many other fields. I.e. purposefully don't have any monitoring, purposefully don't go to the site often etc. then only respond of someone tells you there's a problem. I've dealt with a few contracts in the past that have stipulated that we must respond within xx hours of becoming aware of an issue, if I didn't want to run the service it would be in my interests to do everything in my power not to avoid becoming aware of any issues.
- LgWoodenBadger 3y ago
  What do you mean they don’t monitor for silence? https://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2022/07/articles/fcc-cracking-down-on-long-periods-of-station-silence-short-term-renewals-for-radio-stations-silent-more-than-25-of-license-term/ https://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2022/07/articles/fcc-cracki...
  - akira2501 3y ago
    You should read the linked decisions in the article. The FCC learned about the dead air because the stations themselves filed Special Temporary Authority paperwork with the FCC specifying that the station carrier was not active during that time. So, it was not active monitoring, but passive paperwork review, triggered by the license application itself, that caused the ruling. The FCC does not actively monitor stations in any way.
  - quesera 3y ago
    That article does not talk about the FCC monitoring ordinary licensees for "silence" (which I assume means off-air i.e. transmitter turned off, and not dead-air i.e. broadcast of silent audio). (Dead air is actually a bigger sin than off-air. Off-air happens. Dead air should almost never happen.) The article talks about monitoring stations who have a history of poor usage of their license. And it's not clear that "monitor" here would mean any active steps, vs just requiring the usual mandatory reporting of unscheduled, unpermitted, extended off-air events. But the FCC does not routinely monitor for dead air or any other violations. They do respond to complaints of all kinds. In competitive markets, licensees monitor each other.
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).