Did the general manager of WJLX fake the theft of the station’s own 200-foot AM radio tower?
Some online skeptics think so. Brett Elmore says it just isn’t so.
The alleged theft of that tower in Jasper, Ala., which we told you about earlier this month, gained attention from national and international media outlets (USA Today, The Guardian, South China Morning Post and many others). But it has also generated a lot of snarky comments from some observers, including several radio engineers, who doubt the plausibility of the story.
General Manager Brett Elmore says thieves stole the tower from its rural transmission site. He reported the incident to police on Feb. 2. He said the theft of the tower and other equipment, including its transmitter, took the station off the air.
Elmore says he was unaware the structure had gone missing until a land clearing company made the discovery and called him. The station had no remote monitoring equipment, Elmore says, so personnel were unaware the AM station was off the air prior to the discovery.
However, questions about how a 200-foot tower could “vanish without a trace,” as Elmore described it, swirled.
“Baffling” is the word one engineering expert used in a post discussing the case, “especially in a span of 24 hours.”
Some commenters speculated that WJLX had failed to maintain its AM site over time but needed to keep its related FM translator on the air and required a cover story. One unattributed comment in a Facebook group insisted that the AM has been off the air for several years and the site neglected but that “rumors of an FCC complaint about the silent AM led him to believe there might soon be an inspection, revealing the tower’s sad state and inability to operate.”
Also, a YouTuber, William Collier, said he visited the WJLX tower site and filmed his experience to document it. His discoveries, according to the video, included rusted guy wires, dilapidated fencing, un-mowed grass and a transmitter building that had seemingly fallen into disrepair.
In the video, he challenges the owner’s assertions that the tower was stolen. Instead, he hypothesizes that the radio station operators let the property fall into disrepair and that the AM station was perhaps off the air for an extended time prior to the tower suddenly going missing. (Watch that here.)
Radio World contacted Brett Elmore to follow up.
“People are going to speculate and they think it is an inside job, but I can assure you I had nothing to do with it,” he said. “We didn’t disassemble a 200-foot tower or steal the equipment.”
Elmore says he has given police access to records from the utility company that provides service to the tower site that shows electrical usage until the alleged theft “that prove the station had been in operation” prior to the tower disappearing.
If the FCC were to ask for proof the station has been operating, Elmore says he would offer them the power bills, though he declined to share those records with Radio World.
Elmore says there were challenges to maintaining the AM tower site, which is located in a marshy area near a creek prone to flooding. The station previously hired contract broadcast engineer Olen Booth of Innovative Broadcast Services to work on the transmitter, he says. Radio World’s emails to Booth seeking confirmation were not immediately returned.
“The site was difficult to get to at times with the flooding,” Elmore said. “The transmitter building had flooded on multiple occasions. We had an old 1990s-era Harris transmitter, but the site was properly fenced and working when the tower was stolen.”
As evidence that the site generally was well maintained, he pointed to the photo shown here, which he said was taken “a year and a few months ago.”
The tower, which was constructed in 1957, was “about a 10-minute drive” from the main studio, Elmore says. Typically, station personnel monitor the FM translator that is affiliated with the AM station, he says.
Elmore says he is not sure of the last day of operation of the AM station. He says he called police the day the land clearing company phoned him to report the tower missing.
When asked why no listeners reported the station being off the air, he said an elderly woman who listens to the AM station for its church programming typically would have called him if the station was off the air, as she had done in the past. “I really can’t tell you why we didn’t have a call,” he said.
Elmore says thefts from broadcast sites in his state are quite common but says he wasn’t aware of anything like this in the past. “Unfortunately, we live an area where people will steal anything they can scrap for money.”
The station didn’t have a silence sensor or remote monitoring equipment because of the “expense of the equipment,” he said. Elmore says he is “unsure” how transmitter readings for the AM station were taken prior to the incident.
Elmore says the WJLX tower was not insured. Elmore says the station is not in a financial position to rebuild the site. Jasper is a small market with a population of 14,352, according to the 2010 U.S. census.
He has organized a GoFundMe page to raise funds to rebuild the tower and purchase a new transmitter. So far the GoFundMe effort has raised around $10,000. It has a goal of $60,000.
Elmore says he is hopeful he can get the AM station back on “in Band-Aid mode” within a week or two. He says he hasn’t asked for help from the radio engineering community and is unable to disclose short-term plans to get the station back on the air.
The station licensee is James D. Early, according to FCC records. Elmore describes Early as “retired and an absentee owner” who has little to do with the day-to-day operation of WJLX.
The station also was the subject of a Wall Street Journal opinion piece this week that slammed the federal government for not allowing WJLX to continue broadcasting on its FM translator even if the AM station has been disabled. As we reported earlier the FCC had denied that request.
“It’s nice to know that when life hands you lemons, there’s a federal official out there ready to try to squeeze just a few more ounces of hope out of you,” wrote columnist James Freeman in recounting the FCC’s decision.
WJLX is a 1 kW nondirectional AM station licensed to 1240 kHz. It has an FM translator at 101.5 that operates from a different location. For now, the station continues to stream its programming online.
Meanwhile, Elmore says police continue their investigation and have “received several good leads” in the case. “No one wants this settled more than I do. I want an arrest and for them to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Elmore says.
He says police have not provided any evidence to him that would reveal how thieves made off with the tower.
“(WJLX) means the world to me. I grew up running in the halls here. My father was program director there in the 1980s. I’m a second-generation broadcaster. I’m not sure why anyone thinks I would bring this kind of grief upon myself. I would never do anything to purposely hurt this station.”
Radio World reached out to the Jasper Police Department to ask for a copy of the complaint and seek an update in the investigation. Our messages were not immediately returned. Local investigators have not given any indication they doubt the legitimacy of Elmore’s account.
Anyone with information on the tower’s disappearance is asked to call the Jasper Police Department at 205-221-2121.
Meanwhile, Joe and Jeff Geerling of Geerling Engineering have posted their own musings about this odd case; you can watch that below.
