Missing in Alabama: A Radio Tower, and 'The Sound of Walker County'

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Missing in Alabama: A Radio Tower, and ‘The Sound of Walker County’

On Feb. 2, Brett Elmore was informed that his radio station’s 190-foot-tall tower had vanished. Now he wants answers, and hopes his station can hang on.



“Who in the world steals a radio tower?” said Brett Elmore, the WJLX station manager, recalling his bewildered reaction. Wes Frazer for The New York Times

By Eduardo Medina
Reporting from Jasper, Ala.
Feb. 16, 2024

The radio tower peeking out over dense woods and poultry farms had an AM signal just strong enough to serve WJLX’s intended audience: the people in and around Jasper, Ala., who wanted to hear the Jasper Vikings’ Friday night high school football broadcasts and news of the burger specials at Alabama Stackers on 19th Street.

Then, “The Sound of Walker County,” as the station has long billed itself, went silent. … The tower, all 190 feet of it, had vanished — its 3,500 pounds of spindly steel beams possibly sliced into pieces and dragged away earlier this month by thieves, the police said.

“Who in the world steals a radio tower?” said Brett Elmore, the station manager, recalling his bewildered reaction when a maintenance worker explained to him why the station he often calls “my life” had been knocked off the air.

The disappearance has made for one of the more puzzling cases taken on by the Jasper Police Department, which has had few leads so far.

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The radio tower, in better days. Brett Elmore

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A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 17, 2024, Section A, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: In Alabama, a Case of Grand Theft Audio. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

[Wonder Why]

1. "Grand Theft Audio"? That is so bad, it is great!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Thanks. I edited the post to include that.

Scrap thieves knocked down an antenna in Oklahoma a while back.

[ThoughtCriminal]

2. I remember hearing a story about 30 miles of Railroad Track

Being stolen in Mexico.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. Stolen Alabama AM tower sparks a broader conversation about the station's 'bizarre' operational history

Stolen Alabama AM tower sparks a broader conversation about the station’s ‘bizarre’ operational history, and video debunked claims

In Featured News by Wireless Estimator / February 15, 2024



PLEADING TO POLICE – WJLX General Manager Brett Elmore is requesting the Jasper, Alabama Police Department, which has now been put under a national spotlight, to capture the thieves who stole his AM radio station’s 200-foot guyed tower and its transmitter. Some critics of the incident believe the theft was a coverup so that the FCC would not find out that the station had not been broadcasting for quite some time, and media outlets were duped into accepting Elmore’s claims. A video also contradicts Elmore’s assertions.

Other than local, state, and industry media covering a communications tower collapse, unless it involves a fatality, failure incidents seldom get national legs. However, when an AM station general manager in Jasper, Alabama, reported earlier this month that vandals in the night had walked off with his 200-foot tower, forcing him off the air, it had all the right visuals, novelty, emotion, and angst for additional coverage.

So much so that AP, the Washington Post, CNN, Fox, New York Post, the Today Show, hundreds of newspapers, blogs, and other U.S. and foreign outlets couldn’t ignore writing about it.


WJLX General Manager Brett Elmore informed Wireless Estimator that blogger Ron Johnson, who refutes the theft allegations, “has more skeletons in his closet than my local cemetery,” and his website can only be compared to the Onion, but less relevant.

Partly because WJLX 1240 AM station manager Brett Elmore has played the media like a fine fiddle, championing the need for a thorough investigation and marketing why America should contribute to his GoFundMe page that has already raised over $10,000 towards his goal of rebuilding the station’s uninsured stolen tower and transmitter that will cost at least $60,000. Elmore now states that the cost could be anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000.

“Now we’re silent, but we won’t be silent for long. I’m gonna work tirelessly to get this thing back up and running, one way or the other,” Elmore said in an interview with The Guardian. ... “The sad part is that Jasper has always been a radio town. They have always supported their local radio station,” he said.

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