- Posts
Hi Folks,
Hi Folks,
One of the great things about boards such as this is that we can share and learn from one another’s experiences. Doing so brings with it the burden of separating fact from opinion and I intend to offer both in what follows.
There have been recent posts arguing that it is necessary to elevate AM transmitters so the vandals don’t get them. This raises the problem of the “ground lead” in terms of part 15 legality and the effect on radiation. For this discussion, I am asking those who respond to leave that discussion for another thread. What I want to discuss is the actual probability that a ground mounted part 15 AM transmitter will be vandalized.
Years ago I talked to a telephone lineman who told me that they rarely had vandalism because miscreants are afraid of anything which has wires. In fact, when in college, my nameplate was stolen from my door more than once. I attached a wire to the metal frame and ran it up to the top of the door and no one bothered it again.
How many of us have had our telephone bridge adapter tampered with, and how many of us have had our electric meters tampered with by vandals? I haven’t. No one messes with my cable box out at the curb nor with the power company transformer box. No one has bothered my ham radio antenna in my back yard.
So, it is hard to believe, though my opinion is only based on my experience, that someone would vandalize a grey box with a pipe or CB whip stuck to it. Your neighborhood may differ and that is why I invite “horror” stories. For me, this is a non issue and it does not affect at all my installation of any of my outdoor radio equipment.
Looking forward to reading your stories.
Neil
Total posts : 45366I also live in a normally safe area, but new generations of young people sometimes appear, as did a group of pre-teens on bicycles circulating endlessly on the street, and when no one was watching, they tried car doors, looked in car windows, looked in garages and tried garage door handles. They pried up a metal over-hang above one of my car windows trying to get inside. I caught one in my yard and he said he was “just looking.” I think they must have gotten caught a few times, because that crime wave seems to have stopped. But there are other incidents, such as the guy from across town who was knocking on back doors to find out if anyone was home. If someone was home, he said he was looking for work. Otherwise who knows what he’d do. I called the police.
Total posts : 45366I lived in one of the safest cities in the country; Thousand Oaks, Ca. We had vandals cut phone lines, spray cars, cut cables to the antenna and break into an occupied house to steal a transmitter.
Thief’s don’t think twice ripping up the ground radials at a broadcast site, in fact one bunch stole the tower from a PA AM station. Vandals also drove a vehicle into a transmitter shack of one PA. station just for the fun of it. A telephone lineman I talked to last week would strongly disagree with yours, as they are having to spend millions replacing ripped up copper lines around the high desert.
Broadcasters around the nation are having to improve security at transmitter sites, due to increased vandalism and theft. One station even had a transmitter grow legs and walk out of the transmitter shack; and it had plenty of wires attached.I will keep my AM transmitters out of reach, thank you!
Steve
Radio Brandy
Total posts : 45366I was working the midnight to 6 am shift at wrsl am/fm “True Country 96 Three”. A pioneer in fm radio for Lincoln County Kentucky.
I believe they first signed on with am 1520 then added fm.At any rate around 1995 96 they were granted 12,500 watts not long after the power boost, i applied for a job as a dj and started out doing the daylight shifts such as The General Store where callers would buy, sell and trade items. I eventually landed the overnight shift wich i didnt mind at all since it was quiet and i pretty much had that blowtorch all to myself lol.
One evening around 11:30 pm i left the house to head for work. As i always did every trip to the station i would listen to the other dj’s to get a feel for what they had played so i wouldnt replay the same songs they did when i signed on. I switched the radio on and heard nothing, thinking something was wrong with my radio i changed to wkdo 98.7 on my presets.
Well the radio works, so i switched back to 96.3 nothing but a dead carrier, when i got to the station i was greeted by our engineer who was setting up our marti vhf transmitter to act as stl. The transmitter was 10 miles away. David told me (our engineer) that someone had broken into the transmitter shack and stolen some equiptment, the stl receiver was one of the things they took.In about 30 minutes we were back on the air with a flat mono signal.
The equiptment they took was later said to have been dumped into a lake. Why anyone would want to risk their lives around high powered transmitters is beyond me. I mean this fm transmitter would make the flouresent lights glow! if you switched them off.Some dates may be off since most of it was a blurr, when your nighttime is everyones daytime, it tends to mess with you after awhile lol.
Here is their new station website as well as history of wrsl and its staff over the years. http://www.wpbkfm.com/index.asp
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
