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‘What do you mean, the tower is gone?’: thieves steal 200ft structure from Alabama radio station | Alabama (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 9 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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‘What do you mean, the tower is gone?’: thieves steal 200ft structure from Alabama radio station | Alabama::Small radio station forced to go silent after ‘unbelievable’ theft of giant tower, which would cost over $100,000 to replace

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[–] circuscritic@lemmy.ca 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Typically towers are simple structures to elevate the actual antennas high up in the air. The towers aren't live wires, they're ladders with rungs for mounting.

[–] deranger@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

Not AM. They’ve got an insulator at the base, the entire tower is live. There’s so much energy being transmitted you can get sparks off the fence surrounding the tower.

https://youtu.be/Aax-ehkRTnQ

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 5 points 9 months ago

There was another video where a guy clamped a wrench to ground with a jumper cable and held it (wearing insulated gloves) within arcing distance of the tower. The power transfer of the arc was enough that you could audibly hear one of the transmission frequencies just in the arc along. Those AM towers are no joke.

[–] abhibeckert@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Surely there's an easy to find switch to cut power and make it safe.

[–] circuscritic@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 months ago

AM antennas resemble towers, but they are still primarily antennas.

This AM station was using an FM translator, which was stolen, along with the tower it was mounted to.