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WJLX 200' tower reported stolen

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Let's face it. Nothing is going to happen to these clowns, and they don't care that they're operating illegally. It will take more than one complaint to investigate, and the FCC will take their sweet time investigating and doing anything about it. It took them 5 years to nail David Miller in Newport OR, and these guys figure it's gone on this long, so why worry now? None of us are located locally to them to verify that they are operating illegally, and I'm pretty sure they'd laugh at us for worrying about a nothing station in Jasper AL. If I lived close by, I'd document it, but any complaint to the FCC would take longer to resolve than is necessary. Truthfully, the FCC should be alerted, catch them in the act, and padlock their doors and seize their FM transmitter, then start license revocation proceedings, but that would interfere with AM in all vehicles and License renewals rewards for local programming, and whatever else they feel is the issue of the week.
 
exdjted said:
Let's face it. Nothing is going to happen to these clowns, and they don't care that they're operating illegally. It will take more than one complaint to investigate, and the FCC will take their sweet time investigating and doing anything about it. It took them 5 years to nail David Miller in Newport OR, and these guys figure it's gone on this long, so why worry now? None of us are located locally to them to verify that they are operating illegally, and I'm pretty sure they'd laugh at us for worrying about a nothing station in Jasper AL. If I lived close by, I'd document it, but any complaint to the FCC would take longer to resolve than is necessary. Truthfully, the FCC should be alerted, catch them in the act, and padlock their doors and seize their FM transmitter, then start license revocation proceedings, but that would interfere with AM in all vehicles and License renewals rewards for local programming, and whatever else they feel is the issue of the week.
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You make a good point. Hopefully, someone in the area who cares will take the time to do a little research and then file a first-person complaint with the Commission that doesn't make them sound like a whack-a-doo.
However, if these guys are claiming a reportedly $500,000 insurance loss of the TX site, but they had essentially abandoned the site, they could ultimately end up behind bars for insurance fraud.
 
RFBurns, I haven't seen him in a long time but, I know the person you've brought up, here. He's the guy Brett Elmore attacked and slandered online for years.
 
I'm local and I'm watching this closely. That's why I've joined this forum only today. Never had any need until now. Yes, W268BM has operated as a stand-alone commercial LPFM for right at five years now. No, WJLX has not broadcast not even a peep during all of this time. I suspect Brett Elmore has now decided it's time to cover up the evidence that the AM has been silent and he probably needs that insurance money (if he was able to afford any). If not, this is his way of covering up violations to avoid the fines of being caught originating programming on the translator. He will now request an STA which will legalize his continuing crimes.
 
I neglected to mention in my previous posts that I'm right now still hearing full-time blown commercials and commercial programs on WJBE Country Legends 88.5 which is the non-commercial full-power station controlled by Brett Elmore and operated from the same building in Jasper. He seems to either be very stupid regarding the FCC rules and regulations or he's convinced that he can get away with anything.
 
Weiserguy said:
Time out ... widen your view a bit on Google Maps. Mar-Jac Poultry is ~1200 ft. to the (I'm assuming) northwest. A road into the facility is barely 200' away at its closest point. The Jasper Sewage Treatment Plant is about 1200' to the southeast. It is in a wooded area, but that area is by no means isolated. Hell, one of the access roads into town is within a couple hundred feet of the tower site. Somebody must have seen/heard something. Somebody must've noticed a station going off the air. Somebody must've gotten quite a shock if the 1KW transmission line was cut. (Unless, of course, someone had access to the transmitter shack to kill power to it first.) And don't forget there was probably an aviation beacon at the top, and that had to be powered too.
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What I am saying is it is possible to drop a fairly tall tower and have the site scraped clean in two days

With it being in the woods / industrial area, who is to complain about the noise?

The real test would be to ask the owners to produce the utility bills fore the last five years.
 
Let's assume all that I'm reading here is true. The station is alleged to have been off AM since February 2019. The license was renewed in 2020.

In another case the FCC said the license was inadvertently renewed and cancelled it retroactively. Now they are threatening to cite the licensee with pirating on FM.

This could be a real mess.
 
Flying Dutchman said:
Let's assume all that I'm reading here is true. The station is alleged to have been off AM since February 2019. The license was renewed in 2020.

In another case the FCC said the license was inadvertently renewed and cancelled it retroactively. Now they are threatening to cite the licensee with pirating on FM.

This could be a real mess.
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It's time for the FCC to shut him down and call it a day.

Dan <><

P.S. Is a LPFM dude from Selma, allowed to make this suggestion? :ROFLMAO:​
 
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Spareparts said:
What I am saying is it is possible to drop a fairly tall tower and have the site scraped clean in two days

With it being in the woods / industrial area, who is to complain about the noise?

The real test would be to ask the owners to produce the utility bills fore the last five years.
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I went back and looked at Google Maps' satellite view at full zoom. What I thought was a road is a train track. There's a dirt road from the (former) transmitter site to the southwest corner of the chicken plant that seems to be the only way in or out of that site (via 2nd Ave or 2nd Pl S, which would take a truck carrying tower parts right past Mar-Jac's plant). So they had to truck the tower parts out via that dirt road* to get to one of those paved roads, past a functioning poultry plant, then through the southern part of town, past what looks like houses and/or a small farm on the very next block. And nobody saw anything, heard anything?

* There appears to be one alternate path, but that would involve driving the truck in the other direction, over said train track and over to Town Creek. Looks like a pretty muddy route for a load of steel. Unless the perp(s) planned to submerge their haul, that doesn't seem too plausible.

I'm in agreement with Kelly about this. Has the smell of insurance fraud and/or eliminating the evidence.
 
wattwatcher said:
I neglected to mention in my previous posts that I'm right now still hearing full-time blown commercials and commercial programs on WJBE Country Legends 88.5 which is the non-commercial full-power station controlled by Brett Elmore and operated from the same building in Jasper. He seems to either be very stupid regarding the FCC rules and regulations or he's convinced that he can get away with anything.
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Based on what we're seeing, and considering chances are he picked up WJLX knowing full well it's been off the air for years, it's likely the latter.
 
Flying Dutchman said:
Former or current disgruntled employees will be looked at first. This would take some planning to pull off. The remote would raise an alarm at someone's house when the transmitter shut off. Likely if you broke into the shack as well.

So the bad guys need to know about the remote control and how to disable it first. Maybe someone who had the codes.

Sometimes security cameras are a good idea. Just don't have the DVR in the shack. They'll steal it too.

A welding torch could quickly cut up the tower and two guys load it onto a flatbed.

This takes some real planning and I hope they're caught.

There were some guys in Indiana back in the 1990's who broke into radio station transmitter shacks. They stole and smashed radio equipment. My commercial FM in Attica Indiana was one of the stations they hit. However they hit one station too many. A station owner had an exciter stolen and he heard a signal on his frequency and he tracked those thieving pirates down and busted their asses.
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Security cams are ALWAYS a good idea. Always. Too many dirtbags running loose these days, even in places where you used to be able to leave your doors unlocked. šŸ˜¢
 
It's times like this that I wish I was still getting forum notifications because I would have loved to get on this thread when it was first posted, ha ha.

I've had a few different people tell me that WJLX has been off for years, so I'm inclined to believe when people say it wasn't operating when the tower up and moseyed off into the sunset.

I have my doubts that the FCC will bother doing anything about this, though. For all their talk about the importance of AM, they don't seem interested in enforcing any of the rules. Down in Baldwin County, WHEP 1310 has been off for months while the translator runs, no STAs filed. And I've lost track of the number of stations who don't power down/off at night.
 
Did WJLX actually own the property for the tower and building? Wondering if a property owner hadnā€™t been paid and decided to clear everything off.
 
Flying Dutchman said:
I did some digging and there are more strange radio stories from Jasper Alabama.
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Isn't this going a bit (way) off topic? Or, is your goal to divert attention in other directions away from the topic at hand? Surely the admins here can see that this is off in left field and had absolutely nothing to do with WJLX and a vanishing tower to cover for the fact the AM has been silent for an extremely long time.
 
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