Spokane Thieves Snare Citadel Cable

It wasn’t the kind of Monday morning Ken Broeffle had in mind. The regional engineer for Citadel Communications showed up at his tower site with a crew to install new cable as part of a power and antenna upgrade at KYWL(FM) in Spokane, Wash. When they arrived, they discovered that thieves had hacked off about 250 feet of 3-inch Andrew Heliax from a 10-foot spool.
“We’re not sure if they took it for the copper or to sell the cable,” Broeffle said. “They obviously knew what they were after.”
He valued the loss at about $14,000, including the replacement of the entire spool and the cost of the tower crew’s wasted time. The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office is investigating. Broeffle has put out the word to engineers in his region to be on the lookout for any black-market cable that might show up. The cable is model HJ-850B.
“If someone is approached to buy a good length of line, the sheriff’s office or myself would like to know.” Reach him at [email protected].