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WJLX 200' tower reported stolen

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The topic at hand is stolen radio station equipment in Jasper Alabama. Broadcasters all over the USA and beyond are following it. The more we read about what's happening in Jasper the stranger it gets. Just wow!

Soon we may know who was behind this little conspiracy. It was more than one guy. Maybe several.
 
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Hope the mastermind(s) behind all this will be caught and face a severe punishment.

Dan <><

P.S. I also hope the FCC will hold Mr. Brett accountable, if he's breaking the law or was involved.

In closing: Is a Selma Alabama area LPFM dude allowed to share his thoughts, on this? :ROFLMAO:​
 
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R.D.P. said:
Hope the mastermind(s) behind all this will be caught and face a severe punishment.

Dan <><

P.S. I also hope the FCC will hold Mr. Brett accountable, if he's breaking the law or was involved.

In closing: Is a Selma Alabama area LPFM dude allowed to share his thoughts, on this? :ROFLMAO:​
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Pretty sure that the station owner and the culprit are one and the same. A 200 foot tower doesn’t grow legs and sneak out unnoticed like a teenager sneaking out of the house after curfew
 
WJLX says the tower was uninsured. The FCC will make them put it back up eventually. They don't have a motive to do this to themselves.

Revenge?
 
Flying Dutchman said:
WJLX says the tower was uninsured. The FCC will make them put it back up eventually. They don't have a motive to do this to themselves.

Revenge?
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Yes they do have a motive. Someone protested that WJLX was silent and W268BM was originating programming. By claiming that the tower was stolen and the owner never knew that the AM was off the air, they can justify operating the translator
 
Kelly A said:
In checking the application status for WJLX, it looks like they were granted a silent STA back on August 2, 2017 for TX problems:
"THE STATION USES A GATES #1 AM TRANSMITTER. THE TRANSMITTER OPERATION HAS BECOME INTERMITTENT AND BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF SPARE PARTS, THE LICENSEE ELECTED TO GO DARK UNTIL SUCH TIME AS THE SPARE PARTS NEED ARE LOCATED. THE COMMISSION WILL BE NOTIFIED UPON RETURN TO OPERATIONAL STATUS."

They were granted a silent STA extension a month later expiring on 1/29/2018. The only other application or grant was the 314 form filed back on 4/4/2018 to transfer the license to John Burndette.
How much do you want to bet this AM never came back on the air since 2017 before Burndette bought it, and now everything on the site was stolen? Don't think so.

Me thinks the TV station reporting the theft may have completely foiled Burndette's plans of keeping this under the radar. My guess is that's leased land, and that probably Burndette stopped paying rent and nothing was stolen at all. The landlord probably just kicked him off the site, including removing the tower.
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Any relation to Big Enos Burdette? Nevermind, that was Texarkana. 😆

Another AM in Walker county, but much closer to Birmingham, had it's tower stolen a number of years ago, under very similar circumstances. My money is on the same people being responsible for this one, no matter when it occurred.
 
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lanceventa said:
Nope. Under zero circumstances can a translator originate programming while their parent is silent.
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But that’s what the owner will tell the FCC. They’ll justify operating W268BM by claiming that they “didn’t know” that the AM was off air. WJLX has supposedly been silent for years.
 
Voicetrack of Reason said:
Any relation to Big Enos Burdette? Nevermind, that was Texarkana. 😆

Another AM in Walker county, but much closer to Birmingham, had it's tower stolen a number of years ago, under very similar circumstances. My money is on the same people being responsible for this one, no matter when it occurred.
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What station was that? When?
 
nd2023 said:
But that’s what the owner will tell the FCC. They’ll justify operating W268BM by claiming that they “didn’t know” that the AM was off air. WJLX has supposedly been silent for years.
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Easier to play that game when the tower is still up. I suspect this is more complicated than we think.
 
I live in a neighboring county (and unrelated to the former disgruntled employee, FWIW). WJLX AM has been off the air a majority of the past five years. Every once in a while I would hear them with a very weak signal driving through Jasper, but that's probably been close to two years. Personally, I have no dog in the fight, and as long as another station doesn't hinder mine, then I don't officially complain. However, in all honesty, every station in that county has/had some type of violation. The other AM has had extended silent periods without filing an STA, the LPFM is also silent, no STA. That county is like the wild west. At least this station, um, translator has some community involvement though with local hosts and programming.
 
tvallred said:
the LPFM is also silent, no STA.
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If this is a reference to WQJJ-LP, the station manager told me that, after watching his wife killed over the thing, he wasn't willing to risk the lives of his children to keep it going. He wanted to turn in the license but, after renewal time, the stations mailbox (I'm not kidding!) was stolen with the license presumed to be inside it. No one ever bothered to ask for a replacement. To quote the station manager, "It's not worth watching my family members killed just to keep a non-profit LPFM going when we have a much larger audience and even a profitable income from our online ventures." Having been there and actually watched an out of town engineer physically assaulted at the WJLX studio just for asking to see the public file on one occasion, I tend to agree. In my opinion, those people at WJLX will stop at nothing to win. Even if it involves physically assaulting or even killing someone. They held the engineer, Bill Boyd of North Carolina, down and put a cigarette out by grinding it into his face and then scared him so badly that he didn't want to report the assault. And, yes, I witnessed this live and in person so, I *know* this to be fact.
 
wattwatcher said:
If this is a reference to WQJJ-LP, the station manager told me that, after watching his wife killed over the thing, he wasn't willing to risk the lives of his children to keep it going. He wanted to turn in the license but, after renewal time, the stations mailbox (I'm not kidding!) was stolen with the license presumed to be inside it. No one ever bothered to ask for a replacement. To quote the station manager, "It's not worth watching my family members killed just to keep a non-profit LPFM going when we have a much larger audience and even a profitable income from our online ventures." Having been there and actually watched an out of town engineer physically assaulted at the WJLX studio just for asking to see the public file on one occasion, I tend to agree. In my opinion, those people at WJLX will stop at nothing to win. Even if it involves physically assaulting or even killing someone. They held the engineer, Bill Boyd of North Carolina, down and put a cigarette out by grinding it into his face and then scared him so badly that he didn't want to report the assault. And, yes, I witnessed this live and in person so, I *know* this to be fact.
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Why did his wife get killed? I hope the police caught whoever killed her.
 
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